Comparison
Keepsake helps families write a memoir together with AI ghostwriting help. Lived captures one guided conversation and turns it into a cinematic film. Both are beautiful — but they are very different commitments.
Keepsake is a collaborative writing platform that helps families write a family memoir together, with AI ghostwriting help, and produces a printed hardcover book.
Multiple family members log in and contribute to chapters over time. The AI suggests phrasing, structure, and follow-up questions. You can edit in real time — adding a story, revising a paragraph, asking the AI to draft a new section. At the end, Keepsake binds everything into a hardcover book.
It is a thoughtful product for families who actually want to write something together. The catch is right there: you have to write.
Lived is a cinematic video interview platform. You sit down with someone you love, Lived guides the conversation, and we edit the video into a beautiful 8 to 12 minute documentary film.
No writing. No typing. No weekly check-ins. Your parent talks — you listen — the conversation is captured — and a few days later the finished film arrives.
Lived is $79, one-time.
| Lived | Keepsake | |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | Cinematic documentary film (8–12 min) | Hardcover printed book |
| Format | Video | Text |
| Writing required? | None | Yes — core activity |
| Time commitment | One afternoon | Weeks or months |
| Captures their voice? | Yes — full video | No — written words only |
| Who is doing the work? | You and your parent, once | Multiple family members, over time |
| Price | $79 one-time | Varies by project |
| Output feels like | A short documentary | A family memoir |
Keepsake is a project. A good project, but a project. It takes sustained effort from people willing to write together. If your family has that kind of energy, the result — a real memoir in a printed book — is a meaningful thing.
But most families do not have that energy. Most families have good intentions and busy lives. And most parents who have great stories would rather tell them than type them.
Ask yourself honestly: is your mom going to sit at a keyboard and write her story? Or is she going to tell it to you over a cup of tea? If it is the second — which it almost always is — Lived fits and Keepsake does not.
Unlike Keepsake, Lived requires no writing. Unlike Keepsake, Lived is finished in one afternoon. And unlike Keepsake, what you end up with is a film — you hear her voice, you see her face, you watch the way she looks when she remembers something important.
Lived will never give you a printed book. If that is what you picture when you think of "family memoir," Keepsake is a better fit. But most people who say they want a book really want the stories inside it — and hearing those stories told out loud, on film, is a different kind of gift entirely.
Keepsake is a collaborative writing platform that helps families write a memoir together. Multiple family members contribute to chapters over time. An AI ghostwriter suggests phrasing, structure, and follow-up questions. The final output is a printed hardcover book.
Yes — Keepsake is a writing platform. The AI helps, but the core activity is writing. If your parent loves to write, that is a strength. If they would rather talk than type, Lived is built for them: you sit down together, they talk, and Lived edits it into a film. No typing required.
Lived takes one afternoon — about 45 minutes to an hour of conversation. Keepsake is a collaborative writing project that unfolds over months. If speed matters, Lived is faster by a wide margin.
Keepsake produces a printed hardcover book based on collaborative writing. Lived produces an 8 to 12 minute professionally edited documentary film — video of your parent telling their own story in their own voice, with captions, natural pacing, and background music.
Keepsake's AI assists with phrasing and structure, but the people involved still need to write the content. It is ghostwriting help, not ghostwriting replacement. If you want something that requires no writing at all from anyone, Lived is the option — the storyteller just talks, and we edit the video.
Give someone you love the chance to share theirs.
Give the gift of a story $79, one-time. No subscription.