Help & FAQ

Getting started

How do I create a memorial?

Choose “Create a memorial” from anywhere on the site. We’ll walk you through a few gentle steps: create your account, tell us a little about your loved one, pick a web address (URL) for the page, add their story and a photo, and choose a plan. You can save and come back at any time — nothing is published until you’re ready.

Do I need any technical or design skills?

None at all. Every memorial starts from one of our warm templates, and the setup is guided step by step. If the words are hard to find, our optional AI biography helper can turn a few short answers into a heartfelt first draft that you can edit freely.

Is it free to start?

Yes. You can create and publish a memorial on the Free plan. Paid plans (Plus and Premium) unlock extra memorials and features — see Billing & plans below.

Can I use Fondly Missed in my language?

Yes. Fondly Missed is available in more than 20 languages, including right-to-left languages such as Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, and Hebrew. We follow your browser’s language automatically, and you can switch at any time using the language picker in the footer of every page.

Do guests need an account to take part?

No. Friends and family can leave tributes, guestbook messages, photos, voice notes, and candles with just their name — no account or app needed. Everything a guest shares is held privately for your approval before it appears.

Managing your memorial

How do I edit the memorial after it’s created?

Sign in and open your admin dashboard for that memorial. From there you can edit the life story, dates, location, hero photo and quote, and add or reorder sections such as tributes, the gallery, the family tree, and service/event details.

Can I change the design or layout later?

Yes — you can switch between templates and themes at any time without losing your content. Some advanced layouts and theme customisation are part of our Premium plan.

What sections can a memorial include?

A memorial can carry the life story, a timeline of key moments, a photo gallery, a tribute wall, a guestbook, candles and flowers, a family tree, achievements, story collections, memory prompts, and service details with RSVP and an optional livestream link. You decide which sections appear and in what order.

Can I see how many people have visited?

Yes. Open Insights in your memorial’s dashboard for a private view of visits, tributes and other contributions, followers, and invitations — along with a gentle completeness guide suggesting what to add next. Insights are visible only to the memorial’s admins, and we never track visitors personally.

Can we collect donations in their memory?

Memorial donations are rolling out now. Once available on your account, you can add a donations section where visitors give toward funeral costs or a cause your loved one cared about. The family receives the funds through our payment partner, Paystack, and Fondly Missed takes no platform fee — supporters can add a small optional tip instead, and donors may give anonymously.

Inviting co-admins

Can family members help manage the memorial?

Yes. As the owner you can invite co-admins by email from the admin dashboard. Co-admins can help edit content and moderate submissions, so the work of remembering can be shared across the family.

What’s the difference between an owner and an editor?

The owner has full control, including billing, visibility, listing settings, and the ability to delete the memorial. Editors can help manage content and moderation but cannot change those owner-only settings.

Moderation

Do I approve tributes and photos before they appear?

Yes. Fondly Missed is moderated by design. When a guest leaves a tribute or uploads a photo, it waits in your queue until an admin approves it. Nothing from a guest appears publicly until you say so.

How do I review what guests have submitted?

Open the moderation area of your admin dashboard. You’ll see pending tributes and photos, and you can approve, edit, or remove each one. This keeps the memorial safe, dignified, and free of anything unwelcome.

How does AI-assisted moderation work?

Alongside your queue, an AI helper can screen new submissions and flag anything that may deserve a closer look — flagged items rise to the top so you see them first. If you wish, you can switch on auto-approval for clearly-safe submissions in your memorial’s settings; it is off by default, nothing is ever rejected automatically, and your family always keeps the final say.

What if something unwelcome appears on the memorial?

Every tribute, photo, and recording carries a quiet “Report” link. When a visitor reports an item, it is taken out of public view immediately and returned to your moderation queue for another look, and the memorial’s owner is notified by email. Nothing returns to the page unless you approve it again.

Visibility & privacy controls

Can I keep a memorial private?

Yes. Each memorial can be public, unlisted, or unpublished. Public memorials can appear in our directory and search engines; unlisted memorials are reachable only by their direct link and are not indexed; unpublished memorials aren’t visible to visitors at all.

What’s the difference between publishing and listing?

Publishing controls whether visitors can see the memorial at all. Listing controls whether a published memorial is included in our public directory and sitemap. You can publish a memorial while keeping it unlisted so only people with the link can find it.

Photos & media

How do I add photos?

Upload photos from your admin dashboard, or invite guests to contribute (their uploads go to your moderation queue first). You can set a hero photo, add captions, and reorder the gallery.

Is location data removed from photos?

Yes. To protect your family’s privacy, we strip embedded metadata (such as GPS location, or EXIF, data) from uploaded images.

Billing & plans

What do the plans include?

Free lets you create one memorial with the essentials — the story, a gallery of up to 30 photos, a tribute wall, and a guestbook. Keepsake keeps one memorial but unlocks everything else: 300 photos, voice and video tributes, co-admins, and every layout and theme. Plus covers three memorials with the same features, and Premium removes the limits — unlimited memorials, photos, and co-admins, plus a custom domain and Fondly Missed branding removed. Current prices are on the Pricing page.

How do I upgrade or change my plan?

Sign in and go to your account’s billing area, then choose a plan. Payments are handled securely by Paystack — we never see or store your full card details.

How do I manage or cancel my subscription?

From your account billing area you can change your plan or switch back to Free, which cancels future renewals. See our Terms of Use for how downgrades affect memorials.

Privacy & your data

Who owns the content I add?

You and your family do. You grant us a limited license to host and display it so the memorial can be shown to the people you share it with. Full details are in our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Can I export or delete my data?

Yes. As a memorial’s owner you can download a complete backup — data plus all photos and recordings — at any time from Backup & legacy in the dashboard, no request needed. To close your account entirely, email us at hello@fondlymissed.com and we will take care of it. The Privacy Policy explains what happens to memorial content afterward.

Getting more help

How do I reach a person?

We’re glad to help. Email us at hello@fondlymissed.com and a member of our team will reply. Premium customers receive priority support.

I need urgent emotional support — where can I turn?

If you or someone you love is struggling to cope, please reach out to a local crisis or grief support line. In the US and Canada you can call or text 988 any time, day or night. You matter, and help is always there.

Where can I find guidance on grief and planning?

Our grief resources library gathers plain-hearted guides written with care — a checklist for the first days, help with writing a eulogy and condolence messages, planning a service, and coping with grief in the months that follow. You will find it in the Blog section, linked from the footer of every page.

Voice & video tributes

Can guests leave a spoken or video memory?

Yes. On paid plans, visitors can record a voice note or a short video right in the browser — no app to install — or upload a recording from their device. Each one waits in your moderation queue like everything else, and appears in the memorial’s Voices & Videos section once you approve it.

Which plans include voice and video tributes?

Voice and video tributes are included in the Keepsake, Plus, and Premium plans. If your memorial is on the Free plan you’ll see an upgrade note in the dashboard, and you can change plans at any time from your account’s billing page.

Sharing, following & anniversaries

How do I share a memorial?

Every memorial has a Share button that opens WhatsApp or your device’s own share sheet, or simply copies the link. From the dashboard’s Share & Print section you can also download the memorial’s QR code or a ready-to-print memorial card — a gentle way to include the page in an order of service or a remembrance display.

What does following a memorial do?

Visitors can follow a memorial to stay close from afar. After confirming their email address, followers receive occasional, gentle notes — such as on anniversaries. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and follower details are never shown publicly or shared with anyone.

What are anniversary remembrance emails?

On the birthday and the anniversary of passing, Fondly Missed can send a soft remembrance note to the memorial’s admins and confirmed followers — an invitation to visit, light a candle, or share a memory on the day it matters most.

Custom domains

Can a memorial live on its own web address?

Yes. On the Premium plan you can connect a domain you own — for example remembering-ada.com — so the memorial answers there. Add the domain under your memorial’s Visibility settings, create the two DNS records we show you, and we verify the domain and issue its secure-connection certificate automatically.

Do I have to buy the domain through Fondly Missed?

For now, you bring a domain you already own from any registrar — in-product domain registration is on our roadmap. The memorial always keeps its fondlymissed.com address as well, so links you have already shared continue to work.

Backups & legacy

Can I download a full copy of the memorial?

Yes, at any time. As the owner, open Backup & legacy in your memorial’s settings and download a complete backup — a .zip containing the memorial’s story, timeline, approved tributes and guestbook messages, and every photo and recording — or a lighter data-only file. Your memorial is yours; you are never locked in.

What does a backup include?

Everything the memorial holds: the profile and story, timeline, approved guest contributions and captions, candle counts, and the full-size photo and media files. Other people’s private details — such as donor or follower email addresses — are never part of an export.

What is a legacy contact?

A legacy contact is someone you trust to care for the memorial if you no longer can. Name them under Backup & legacy and we email them to confirm they accept. Naming a legacy contact never moves ownership automatically — the memorial only ever changes hands through a deliberate transfer.

For funeral homes & partners

Can funeral homes or organisations create memorials for families?

Yes. Partners have their own dashboard where they can create memorials on families’ behalf — one at a time or in bulk — with a co-branded public page listing the memorials in their care and a referral code that tracks attribution and revenue share.

How does a family take over a partner-created memorial?

The partner shares a private claim link with the family. When a family member opens it and signs in, ownership of the memorial transfers to their account — from then on they control the content, moderation, and visibility.

How do we become a partner?

We would love to hear from you. Email us at hello@fondlymissed.com with a little about your organisation — funeral homes, churches, and celebrants are all welcome — and we will set you up.