A speech you'd actually give, for $24 once
The interview asks about the person. We write the speech in your words and revise it as many times as you need. One payment, and nothing charges you again.
One payment · No subscription · No account needed to buy
Add-ons are chosen at checkout. Neither is ever pre-checked, so the total stays $24 unless you tick one yourself.
- The full speech, written from your stories
- Unlimited revisions until it's right
- Printable cue cards
- A teleprompter with a pace timer
- A night-before tips sheet
- A private link that keeps working
What SayItTrue costs
A SayItTrue speech costs $24, paid once. That covers the guided interview, the full speech written from the speaker's own stories, and unlimited revisions until it's right, plus printable cue cards, a teleprompter with a pace timer and a night-before tips sheet. A second speech is $10 more. Human review is $29.
One price covers all four occasions and all sixteen occasion-and-role interviews. A wedding, a retirement, a milestone birthday, a eulogy — same $24. There's no plan above it and no cheaper tier below it, because there's only one thing to buy.
What $24 covers
Six things arrive with every speech. Two of them look like packaging when you're buying and turn out to matter most on the day.
The speech itself
Written from the answers you gave, in four parts — hook, story, heart, toast. The draft also records which of your stories each part drew on, and what it deliberately left out and why.
Unlimited revisions
Ask for funnier, warmer, shorter, more me, add a callback, decliché, or a different length. No cap, no per-revision charge, no queue to join.
Printable cue cards
Your speech laid out to print and hold. Paper doesn't dim, lock itself, or run out of battery halfway through the second story — which is the whole argument for it.
A teleprompter with a pace timer
The speech scrolls on your phone and the timer tells you whether you're running long while you can still do something about it. Nerves make people read faster; this is what catches that.
A night-before tips sheet
One page to read the evening before, when you're rehearsing in a hotel room at eleven and wondering whether it's too long.
A private link that keeps working
Your speech lives at a private signed link. No password to remember, and it still opens on the morning of.
Stage directions are stored apart from the prose, so a pause never counts toward your spoken time. Timing is planned at 130 words per spoken minute, which puts a 4-minute speech at about 520 words — every other length is in the guide to speech length and timing. If you'd rather see a finished one than a list of parts, there's a complete annotated best man speech for a brother.
The two add-ons
Both sit at checkout. Both start unticked. Most people buy neither, and that's the expected outcome rather than a failure.
A second speech
Built from the same interview, so you don't answer anything twice. It's for the rehearsal dinner, or for a second occasion where you're speaking about the same person again.
Skip it if you're speaking once. Most people are.
Human review
A person reads your speech and sends notes back within 24 hours. Useful when you're unsure whether a story belongs in front of that particular room, which is a judgement call rather than a writing problem.
Skip it if the draft already sounds like you and you have time to read it aloud twice. Revisions are free either way — what $29 buys is a second opinion, not more edits.
What else you could do instead
There are four honest ways to end up with a speech. Three of them are cheaper than this one, and one of them is better than this one if you have the budget and the notice.
| Option | What you pay | What you hand over | What you get back | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SayItTrue | $24 once | Answers to 6–9 questions about the person, typed | A speech in your words, unlimited revisions, cue cards, a teleprompter, a tips sheet | Someone who has the memories and no idea how to shape them |
| A free one-prompt generator | $0 | A paragraph you paste in | A draft in seconds, in nobody's voice in particular | Someone who wants a starting point and will rewrite it themselves |
| A template site | $0 | Names and dates dropped into blanks | A structure you still have to fill with your own writing | Someone who enjoys writing and just wants the shape |
| A human speechwriter | A quoted fee | A booked call, your time on it, and a lead time | A speech written by a professional who heard your voice | Someone with budget and enough notice to book one |
A speechwriter quotes per job, so there's no figure to print here. It's the most expensive option on this table by a distance, and for a wedding you care about it can still be the right one.
The free generators are the comparison most people actually weigh, and free is genuinely fine for some of them — the difference between pasting a paragraph and answering nine questions is set out in the comparison with one-prompt speech generators.
Why one payment and not a subscription
Because most people write one speech in a decade.
A monthly plan built for that customer isn't priced for the speech. It's priced for the eleven years and eleven months of not needing it, and it collects most of its money from people who meant to cancel. We'd rather charge $24 in front of you than $6 a month behind you.
It's a worse business on a spreadsheet. Every sale has to be earned again, and a happy customer has no reason to come back until somebody else gets married or dies. That's fine. It's also why there's no free tier that turns into a plan and no trial with a clock on it.
The fair questions
Is $24 a lot for a speech?
It's more than free, and free exists. What you're paying for is the part that isn't writing: the interview that asks what their hands looked like when they worked, or what people will notice is missing on Monday, and then pushes for the detail when your first answer is thin. A blank document doesn't ask you anything. That's the reason it stays blank until 1am.
What if I don't like it?
Revise it. Funnier, warmer, shorter, more me, add a callback, decliché, change the length — as many times as you want, at no extra cost. You also read the draft before you decide anything, so the judgement happens with the actual words in front of you rather than on faith. There's no refund policy here to hide behind; the answer is that we keep working on it until it's right.
Do I need an account?
No. There's no sign-up before the interview and none at checkout. Your speech lives at a private signed link that keeps working.
Is it the same price for a eulogy?
Yes. A eulogy costs $24, the same as a best man speech, and the interview behind it is built with the same care. That matters because grief is not a premium tier. Nobody planning a funeral should find a higher number waiting for them at checkout. If you want to see what the writing looks like first, there's a full annotated eulogy for a mother.
What happens to my stories?
They stay attached to your private link, alongside the speech they built. Every interview also asks who's in the room and what's off limits, and anything you rule out is left out.
Who shouldn't buy this
Three people, and we'd rather say so here than take the $24.
- Anyone who won't answer questions about the person. The interview takes real memories as input. Give it nothing and it has nothing to write with, and a free generator will produce filler faster than we will.
- Anyone speaking about someone they don't really know. A stand-in speaker, a distant colleague, a name on a running order. There's no story to draw on, and a warm speech about a stranger reads exactly like what it is.
- Anyone who's already written it and wants a proofread. You don't need the interview at all. Human review at $29 is the closer fit, or a friend with a red pen, who is cheaper and probably faster.
The retirement interview is a decent test of the first case: it asks who's better at their job because of them. If that leaves you blank, read the annotated retirement speech for a colleague and see whether anything comes back before you spend anything.
How buying one speech goes
Most people feel weird about this. Then they read their draft.
- Pick the occasion and your role. Wedding, eulogy, retirement or milestone birthday, then who you are to them. There are sixteen combinations and each one has its own questions.
- Answer the questions. Six to nine of them, one at a time, typed. Each one knows what a usable answer contains, so a thin reply gets a follow-up.
- Read the draft. Hook, story, heart, toast, with a note on where each part came from.
- Revise until it's right. Any of the moves, as many times as you need.
- Pay $24. No account. Tick an add-on here if you want one; nothing is ticked for you.
- Take the cue cards or the teleprompter with you. Print the cards, or run the prompter on your phone with the pace timer going.
Common questions
How much does SayItTrue cost?
$24 for one speech, paid once. That includes the interview, the speech, unlimited revisions, printable cue cards, a teleprompter with a pace timer, a night-before tips sheet and a private link.
The only other numbers on the site are the two optional add-ons: $10 for a second speech and $29 for human review.
Is there a subscription?
No. There's one payment of $24 and nothing recurring behind it, so there's nothing to cancel later.
There's also no free tier that converts into a plan, and no trial with a clock running.
Do I need an account to buy?
No account is needed. You start the interview, answer the questions and pay, with no sign-up step anywhere in that.
Your speech lives at a private signed link that keeps working, which is what an account would otherwise be for.
Can I get a second speech?
Yes, for $10 more. It's built from the same interview, so you don't answer any questions again.
People usually take it for a rehearsal dinner, where they're speaking about the same person to a smaller room. It's an add-on at checkout and it starts unticked.
What is human review?
A person reads your speech and sends you notes within 24 hours, for $29.
It's a second opinion on judgement calls — whether a story lands, whether a line is too much for that room. Revisions are already unlimited without it.
Is a eulogy the same price as a wedding speech?
Yes. Every occasion is $24, and the eulogy interview asks eight questions rather than the wedding's nine.
Nothing about a funeral costs more here than a wedding does.
Can I revise the speech after I've paid?
Yes. Revisions are unlimited and don't stop at the payment — ask for funnier, warmer, shorter, more me, a callback, a decliché pass, or a different length.
Changing the length re-times the whole speech at 130 words a minute, so a cut from 4 minutes to 2 takes it from about 520 words to about 260.
How do I get my speech?
At a private signed link, which opens without a password on any device you have with you.
From there you can print the cue cards or run the teleprompter with its pace timer.
Answer the questions. Read your draft. Pay when it's right.
Pick your occasion and your role, and the interview starts asking. $24 covers all of it, including every revision it takes to get there.
One payment · No subscription · No account needed to buy