Frequently Asked Questions

Memolio is a personalised book for grandparents. You share photos and memories; AI writes and illustrates a hardcover book featuring the real grandparent on every page. It's designed as a gift from grandchildren to grandparents — or for anyone who wants to preserve a parent's or grandparent's story.

About two weeks total. The questionnaire takes around 20 minutes, AI generation takes 30 minutes to 2 hours, you review and request any changes (usually a day or two of back-and-forth), and then printing and shipping take 7–14 business days within the EU and UK.

The illustrations are AI-generated, using the photos you provide as the visual reference. We use a specialist image model tuned for consistency and warmth across a whole book — not just one striking image. They're unique to your family and based on the grandparent's actual appearance.

We're honest about this because it shapes what the product is: the illustrations are better than most people expect, and they're unique to your family. They're not replacements for commissioned portraits, but they're a world away from the generic clip-art inside most personalised books.

A commissioned illustrated book — where a human artist paints every page from your photos and writes a story from scratch — would cost several thousand pounds. Most families can't justify that, which means most grandparent stories never get told in this way.

AI changes that equation. It does the work of the illustrator and the writer, which means we can offer genuine personalisation — a story built from real memories, illustrations based on your family's actual faces — at a price that's within reach for most people. We're not using AI to cut corners. We're using it to make something that wasn't possible before: a properly bespoke book, available to families who couldn't otherwise afford one.

Minimum three clear photos of the grandparent: one from younger life (roughly twenties), one from mid-life (roughly fifties–seventies), and one recent. Optional photos of a partner or grandchildren. JPEGs and PNGs work best; mobile phone snaps are fine. More photos is always better — the AI picks up on more cues for likeness.

We ask for three photos of the grandparent — one recent, one from young adulthood, and one from childhood. The first two are required; the childhood one is optional, because many grandparents don't have a good-quality photo from that far back and that's very common. If you skip the childhood photo the book still works — we digitally de-age the young-adult photo so a childhood self still appears in the illustrations. It won't be a perfect likeness of how they actually looked as a child, but that stage of life stays in the story.

The photo-or-description choice only applies to grandchildren. If you have parental permission you can upload a photo for the best likeness; if not, you can describe the grandchild in words and the AI will generate a matching character. For the grandparent themselves, we need photos — the whole book is built around drawing that specific person.

Yes. If the book includes children — your own children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews — always get parental permission before uploading their photos. The images of a child belong to the child's parents or guardians, not the person ordering the book. This is basic consent practice and it matters regardless of which service you use. For any adult in the book who doesn't know you're uploading photos of them, give them a heads-up too.

Yes. Memolio is bilingual from the start. You pick English or German at the questionnaire stage and the full book is written natively in that language — it's not a translation of an English template. The German version is written by an LLM operating in German end-to-end.

Not yet. English and German are live. French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese are on the roadmap — the architecture is designed to add languages, but we're prioritising quality over breadth.

Yes. You can add up to three grandchildren. They appear on the front cover, at the start of the story, and at the end. You can also include the grandparent's partner.

If you have parental permission you can upload a photo so the likeness is correct. If you don't have permission, or don't feel comfortable uploading a photo of a child, you can describe the grandchild in words instead — appearance, approximate age, anything distinctive — and the AI will generate a character that matches the description. It's less accurate than a photo, but it means the book still works without uploading images of children you can't fully speak for.

Always. After generation, you get a review page where you flick through every spread. If something's wrong — face, outfit, scene, typo — tap the page and tell us what to change. We re-render that specific page. Nothing prints until you approve the final book.

Yes. Memolio is GDPR-compliant. Your photos are deleted from our image host 90 days after book delivery. Every US or international AI processor we use (OpenAI, BytePlus, Cloudinary, AWS) operates under Standard Contractual Clauses. We never use your photos or stories to train AI models. Full details are in the privacy policy.

Most commonly: milestone birthdays (60, 70, 80, 90), Christmas, Mother's Day, Father's Day, retirement, and anniversaries. Also often ordered as a keepsake when a grandparent's memory is fading — the book captures their story while it's still theirs to tell.

Because you approve the book before it prints, this is rare — but if a printing defect slips through, we reprint and reship at no cost.

One hardcover book is €45, plus shipping. Shipping is charged separately and depends on where you're delivering — we'll show you the exact cost before you commit. Everything except shipping is included in the €45: AI storytelling, illustrations, and printing. There is no digital-only option — the book is designed as a physical keepsake.

Yes — and it works out cheaper. Bundle pricing: two books for €74, or three for €99 (plus shipping per address). Useful when you want one for the grandparent's shelf and one for each side of the family, or when several siblings want their own copy.

If you're using WhatsApp, you don't have to type a single word. You can send voice messages for every answer — just speak, and the bot understands what you mean. This works whether you're answering on someone else's behalf or telling your own story. Anyone who finds typing slow or uncomfortable will find it much more natural.

It works particularly well when you're sitting together with the person the book is about. One of you asks the question, the other tells the story — hold the phone up and record it. Most people finish in under half an hour that way, and it barely feels like filling in a form at all.

Absolutely, and this is often the most rewarding way to do it. Sit down together, go through the questions one by one, and record their answers as voice messages. The AI is designed to work with natural, conversational speech — rambling answers, half-remembered dates, stories that go off on tangents — all of it is useful.

Many families find this unexpectedly moving. The questions often open up stories the grandparent has never told, or that the family has never thought to ask about. The book becomes the prompt for a conversation that might not otherwise have happened — and that conversation becomes its own memory, separate from the book itself.

Hooray Heroes and Wonderbly create beautiful personalised books — but the story is fixed. Every grandma who orders one gets the same narrative, with a name swapped in. Memolio creates a story that only exists for your grandparent.

Storyworth is closer in spirit — it's also about capturing real memories. But it works by sending weekly email prompts for a full year, and the grandparent does all the writing themselves. Memolio works in 30 minutes, and the AI does the storytelling for them.

The short version: other products make the book personal by putting a name in it. We make it personal by putting their life in it.

Memolio is currently in private testing. Join the waitlist to be notified when we open to new customers, and to follow the build along the way.