Tellingly is a phone app for your family's stories.
They talk. Tellingly listens, asks more, and writes their biography with their own words.
Your first stories are free. After that, $99 a year.
Today's question for Vera
What was it like growing up in the apartment over your father's hardware store?
An example family from our app. Vera Calloway, born 1941, grew up over her father's hardware store in Alder Creek, Minnesota. Her husband Frank died in 2017. Their son is Roy. Their granddaughter is Ellie Calloway-Reyes.
The biographer
Some days the question comes from family. Today Ellie asked her grandma about the day she met Grandpa Frank.
It reads every story and sees which parts of her life need more detail. Then it asks her. No one has to set this up. It just happens.
Her biographer reads every story she has told, and the stories her family told about her. It finds the threads that run through them and writes her biography, one the whole family will want to read and share. Then it asks her about what is still missing, so the next edition is even better.
From the first page of Open at Seven
“The next morning she came down to the store at seven, tied on her apron, and unlocked the front door before her father got downstairs. He saw her there, and he knew.”
Every line in her own words is her real voice. Tap one and that moment of her recording plays. The photos she added to her stories sit right beside them in her biography. It is her life, in her words, her voice, and her pictures.
“I heard her. I was standing in that crooked hallway with my letter in my hand.”
About 14,000 words. Built from 60 of Vera's stories, 6 from Roy and 3 from Ellie. Fourth edition, October 2026.
Vera is an example family from our app.
“The road I did not take is still back there, and sometimes I wave to it, but I have never once been sorry about the road I walked.”
Vera, in the last chapter of her biography.
Tap anyone on the family tree, even someone who is gone, to find every story the family told about them.
Ask Tellingly anything about Grandpa Frank. It writes an answer from the family's own stories, and shows every story it used, so you can listen to them yourself. If nobody ever said it, it tells you so.
Right after she tells a story, she picks who hears it, and when: now, on a date she picks, or after she is gone. She can change it any time.
One big red button. Someone can sit beside them, read the question out loud, and press Record.
| Most story gifts | Tellingly |
|---|---|
| Answers written down. | Answers spoken, kept in their own voice, and written down. |
| One book after a year. | A biography that keeps growing, with their voice under every quoted line. |
| You read it. | You can ask it anything. The answer comes from every story the family told, and it shows you the ones it used. |
| One storyteller. | The whole family, and everyone they talk about. |
Our promises
Give it
Paid once, today. A full year. Nothing renews.
$99 for one storyteller. $148 for two. Listeners are always free.
Give TellinglyYes. Only storytellers pay. Everyone else joins free, hears the stories, asks questions, and can add memories.
Yes. Everyone can tell their first stories for free. After that, a plan is $99 a year for one storyteller. A gift is different. You pay once, today, for a full year, and the whole family listens free.
No. Set it up for your mom and just listen. If you want to tell your own, add yourself as a storyteller any time.
Only the people the storyteller picks.
Yes. Any storyteller can download every recording they made, any time, up to once a month.
Yes. iPhone and Android.
I grew up hearing my family's stories. One day it hit me that the people who told them would not always be here. I wanted to record them and keep them for the ones who come after. So I built this app for myself and my family, and I built it the way I would want it built: carefully, with their privacy first. I'm sharing it because I think your family would love it too.
Steve, who made Tellingly
One question becomes a story. One story leads to another. In time, you have the story of their life, in their own voice.
