Yes, Remento is legit. It is a real US company (Heirloom Media Technologies Inc., doing business as Remento) that records your family member telling their stories, turns those recordings into written chapters and prints a hardcover book. It was backed by Mark Cuban on Shark Tank, and it holds a 4.8 TrustScore on Trustpilot.

In this post, you’ll learn:

  • What Remento really costs, including the renewal most buyers miss
  • Which Remento complaints hold up and which are noise
  • Where Remento genuinely beats Chapter, and when Chapter is the better fit

If you are weighing Remento as a gift for a parent or grandparent, this is the check to do first.

Is Remento a Scam?

Remento is not a scam. You pay, your storyteller records, and a printed book arrives. The money-back guarantee is real and published. The complaints that exist are about support speed, auto-renewal and cancellation, not about money taken with nothing delivered.

Here is the evidence on the “is it real” side:

So the answer to “Remento scam?” is no. The better question is whether it is the right kind of book for your family.

How Does Remento Work?

Remento is a guided storytelling service. Your storyteller gets a weekly prompt by email or text, taps a link and records an answer out loud on any device. There is no app, login or password for them to manage.

Remento’s AI, which it calls Speech-to-Story, turns each recording into a written chapter. You can keep a word-for-word transcript or a cleaned-up narrative version, in first or third person, and edit the text before it goes to print.

After a year of prompts, you assemble the stories into an 8x10 full-color hardcover. Each story gets a QR code that plays the original recording, so readers can hear the voice behind the words.

Family members can join as unlimited collaborators. They suggest questions and see new stories as soon as they are done.

If you would rather run this process yourself, our guide to interviewing family for a memoir covers the same question-and-record method.

How Much Does Remento Cost?

Remento costs $99 for the first year, which includes one storyteller, unlimited collaborators, a year of prompts and one hardcover book of up to 200 pages. After that, it renews at $99 a year or $12 a month unless you turn renewal off.

Here is the full price list from Remento’s pricing guide, checked in October 2026:

ItemPrice
First year + 1 hardcover (up to 200 pages)$99
Renewal$99/year or $12/month
Expand book to 380 pages+$30
Extra hardcover copy (up to 200 pages)$69
Extra copy (201-380 pages)$99
E-book$49.99
Additional storyteller$99

The real cost of a family project is usually higher than $99. If three siblings each want a copy of a 250-page book, you pay $99 + $30 + $99 + $99 = $327, before any renewal.

Shipping is free in the US on economy service, which Remento’s FAQ says takes about 21 business days. Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand cost extra.

What Are the Most Common Remento Complaints?

The most common Remento complaints are slow customer support, unexpected auto-renewal and trouble cancelling or deleting an account. Complaints about the printed book itself are rare. Here is what shows up across review sites.

Auto-renewal after the book is done

Remento’s own pricing guide confirms that annual subscriptions renew 12 months after your most recent purchase or gift delivery. Renewal is on by default. You have to turn it off in My Account settings once the book is finished.

That is legal and disclosed, but it catches gift buyers who assumed $99 was a one-time price. Set a calendar reminder for month 11.

Slow or automated support

Trustpilot’s own review summary notes that some customers struggled to get timely help or reach their accounts when technical problems came up. Several reviewers describe automated replies before they reached a person.

To be fair, Trustpilot also shows Remento replying to 100% of negative reviews, usually within 24 hours.

Hard-to-delete accounts set up by someone else

On Product Hunt, one parent said their son signed them up without asking. They could not delete the account themselves and kept getting reminder emails after asking support to stop.

The lesson for gift buyers: ask your storyteller first. Remento only works if they want to tell the stories.

Collaborator navigation

A three-star Trustpilot reviewer found the site easy for the account owner but harder for family collaborators to use. Expect to walk relatives through it.

What Do Remento Reviews on Trustpilot Say?

Remento reviews on Trustpilot are overwhelmingly positive: a 4.8 TrustScore from roughly 1,750 reviews as of October 2026. Happy reviewers praise the easy recording links, the quality of the prompts and the emotional impact of the finished book.

Two cautions when you read that score:

  • The profile is claimed and on a paid plan. Remento has managed its Trustpilot profile since November 2022 and pays for a Trustpilot subscription. That is common and allowed, but it means the company actively invites reviews.
  • Reviews skew toward the emotional payoff. Many are written right after the book arrives. Renewal and cancellation frustrations tend to surface months later.

Still, a 92% five-star share across more than a thousand reviews is hard to fake. Most families who finish a Remento book are glad they did.

Is Remento BBB Accredited?

We found no Better Business Bureau profile for Remento when we searched BBB.org in October 2026. The only close match was an unrelated Minnesota design firm called Remento Designs.

No BBB profile does not mean anything bad. Many direct-to-consumer startups never register. It does mean BBB is not a place you can escalate a dispute with Remento, so your fallbacks are the 30-day guarantee and your card issuer.

Is Remento Worth It?

Remento is worth it if your goal is to capture a loved one’s voice and stories as a keepsake, and the storyteller is willing to record weekly. It is less worth it if you want a structured, book-length memoir with a narrative arc.

Remento’s output is a collection of answers to prompts. Each chapter stands alone. That is perfect for a family heirloom, but it is not the same as a memoir with themes, structure and a through-line. Our guide on how to structure a memoir explains the difference.

One more consideration: the QR codes rely on Remento’s servers staying online. Remento’s FAQ says you can download your recordings and export stories as text or PDF, so do that once the book ships.

Remento Red Flags to Check Before You Buy

Remento is legit, but these points will save you money and frustration:

  • Turn off auto-renewal as soon as the book is ordered, unless you want another year.
  • Check the page count. Only 200 pages are included. Long-winded storytellers can trigger the $30 surcharge.
  • Order all copies inside 30 days if you want them covered by the refund guarantee.
  • Ask the storyteller first. A surprise subscription for someone who does not want it is the source of several complaints.
  • Download everything (audio and text) before you let the subscription lapse.

Where Remento Beats Chapter

This is Chapter’s blog, so here is the honest comparison. For some families, Remento is simply the better buy.

Remento captures the actual voice. The QR codes let grandchildren hear their grandmother tell the story. Chapter writes a book; it does not record or preserve audio.

Remento is built for someone else to tell the story. The storyteller only has to answer a text and talk. Chapter assumes you, the author, are driving the project and making decisions about the book.

Remento prints and ships the hardcover. The $99 includes a printed book delivered to your door. Chapter gets you a finished manuscript; printing and publishing are separate steps you handle yourself.

Remento spreads the effort over a year. One prompt a week is gentle for an older storyteller. Chapter is faster, which is a strength for authors and a drawback if the point is a slow, shared family ritual.

If you want a voice-preserving gift book for a grandparent who will happily answer prompts, Remento is the right tool and Chapter is not.

When Chapter Is the Better Choice

Our Pick — Chapter

Chapter researches, plans and writes a complete nonfiction book, including memoirs, in your voice. You approve the outline first, so the result reads like a structured book, not a stack of separate answers.

Best for: Writing your own memoir, life story or legacy book with a real narrative arc Pricing: $97 one time, 2 books included (fiction or nonfiction), 30-day money-back guarantee Why we built it: Most people who want a life story book are stuck on turning memories into a finished, structured manuscript.

Chapter fits better when:

  • You are telling your own story. If you are the memoirist, not the interviewer, you do not need a year of weekly prompts. See how to write a memoir with AI.
  • You want a book with structure. Chapter builds an outline with themes and an arc, then writes to it. Our memoir outline template shows what that looks like.
  • You want to publish. Chapter gets you to a manuscript you can self-publish on Amazon or elsewhere, and you keep 100% of the rights.
  • You do not want a subscription. Chapter is $97 one time with no renewal to cancel. Remento renews at $99 a year unless you switch it off.

More than 10,000 authors have used Chapter, and it has been featured in USA Today and the New York Times. For a full look at what you get, read our Chapter review.

You can also combine them. Some families use Remento to collect a parent’s recordings, then use the transcripts as source material for a fuller legacy book or family history book.

If what you really want is a finished, structured memoir rather than a prompt-by-prompt keepsake, Chapter’s nonfiction software writes the complete book for $97 one time, with 2 books included, no subscription and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

FAQ

Is Remento legit?

Yes, Remento is legit. It is a registered US company, Heirloom Media Technologies Inc., backed by Mark Cuban on Shark Tank, with a 4.8 Trustpilot score from about 1,750 reviews. It delivers a real printed hardcover and offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on purchases.

Is Remento a one-time payment?

No, Remento is not strictly a one-time payment. The first year costs $99 and includes one hardcover book. After 12 months it auto-renews at $99 a year or $12 a month unless you turn renewal off in your account settings. You keep access to existing stories if you cancel.

What are the main Remento complaints?

The main Remento complaints are slow customer support, unexpected auto-renewal and difficulty deleting accounts set up by someone else. Complaints about the printed book quality are rare. Most negative reviews are about account management rather than the product itself.

Does Remento offer refunds?

Yes, Remento offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. It covers the initial $99 purchase, extra books, e-books, renewals and gift cards, requested within 30 days of purchase. Only the original purchaser can request it, and the Remento Workbook add-on is non-refundable.

Is Remento better than writing a memoir yourself?

Remento is better if you want to preserve a loved one’s voice through recorded answers and QR codes. Writing a memoir yourself, with help from a tool like Chapter, is better if you want a structured book with a narrative arc that you can publish. See our complete memoir guide.