There are now at least eight services built around the same idea: missionary letters and photographs, turned into a printed book. “Everything included” and “beautifully designed” don’t tell you much when you’re choosing between them. Here is what each one actually does, what it costs, and where MissionMems is genuinely different rather than just newer.
The size nobody mentions
Price is the number on the page; size is the number you have to go digging for — it’s rarely on the homepage, and sometimes not published anywhere at all. MissionMems prints at 8.5″×11″. Here’s what the cheaper headline prices actually buy:
- mymissionarybook.com’s $149.99 book is 6″×9″— about 42% less page area than MissionMems (54 sq in versus 93.5 sq in). Their own FAQ states a typical finished book runs 80–120 pagesfor a full 18-month-to-two-year mission. MissionMems’ typical is 250+, because nothing is condensed to fit.
- mymissionletters.com’s $99 is also 6″×9″,and on uncoated paper — matching MissionMems’ size class and coated-paper spec costs $229–259 there, and even their largest trim (7.44″×9.68″) is still about 23% less page area than 8.5″×11″.
- myfieldbound.com and mymissionmoments.com both print at 8.5″×11″— the same page as MissionMems. They are the two to compare on everything other than size, because on size there is nothing to compare.
- missionarymemories.com and mymission.com don’t publish a trim size anywhere on their sites. missionmail.me doesn’t either, and doesn’t publish a price for the printed book at all.
None of this means the smaller books are bad — a book sized to what a shorter mission actually produced is a reasonable, honest product. It means the price on the homepage and the book that arrives are two different comparisons, and the second one is the one that matters once it’s on the shelf.
What actually differs, not just the marketing copy
The place these split is not price first — it’s whether you build the book or it builds itself. Missionary Memories and mymission.com’s “Called to Serve” book (the same underlying platform, down to identical copy on both sites) are editors: you upload the emails, then choose a layout, add captions, rotate photos, and approve your own proof. MissionMems and mymissionletters.com both read the letters and compose the book automatically — no layout decisions to make. That distinction matters more than most feature lists, because the editor kind is the one that usually gets abandoned around letter thirty, not finished.
Within the automated kind, here is what is specific to MissionMems:
- Every letter prints, unshortened.Nothing is trimmed or summarized to fit a layout. The book gets longer instead — most missions run well past the 250-page base.
- Every area is its own chapter, with its companions. The place, the dates it ran, and everyone served there — their faces, how long, and a line about each pulled straight out of the letters. Nobody types this in by hand.
- Every baptism, in order, nobody left off.A roll at the back: name, date, and a line from the letter that mentions them — a record of people, not a count.
- Photographs keep their shape. A tall photo is never cropped square to fit a grid; the strongest ones get a whole page.
- What came back, too. The letters family wrote to the missionary are in the back of the book, in their own voice.
- Captions only from their own words. Nothing invented; names and addresses of the people they taught are held back by default and confirmed before anything prints.
The services, by name
What each one actually offers, as of today — prices and features change, so treat this as a snapshot rather than gospel.
- MissionMems — from $200, 8.5″×11″. Most missions come to between $200 and $225. The only size currently for sale is the flagship: a hardcover with a printed, gloss-laminated case, 100 lb gloss paper, full color. Fully automated — nothing to lay out yourself.
- mymissionarybook.com — $149.99 flat, 6″×9″,up to 300 pages included (typically 80–120 used), “everything included,” backed by Storied.com. Forward the emails, they build the book, and an optional automated pass cleans up typos and grammar — MissionMems never changes a word.
- mymissionletters.com — $49 digital / $99 hardcover,up to 700 pages, free US shipping, under two weeks. The $99 is 6″×9″ on uncoated paper; 7.44″×9.68″ coated (their largest, closest to MissionMems’ spec) runs $259. Also reads emails, photos, files and social posts automatically — the closest competitor to MissionMems on how the book gets built, not just on price.
- missionarymemories.com — $99 hardcover,but that only covers 100 pages; 50¢ for each page past that, the same rate MissionMems charges past its much larger 250-page base. Trim size isn’t published. You build the book yourself: choose a layout, add captions, approve your own proof.
- mymission.com (“Called to Serve”) — the GoFamily platform, near-identical in copy and mechanics to Missionary Memories: a free blog/app tier with a paid book, same DIY-editor model.
- myfieldbound.com — $179 or $199, 8.5″×11″. The closest thing to MissionMems on this list, and the newest: the same trim size, the same 250-page base and the same 50¢ a page after it. The difference is who lays the book out. $179 gives you an editor and the work; $199 has their team build a first draft which you then adjust. Either way the book is something you finish, rather than something that arrives finished. Extra copies $89.
- mymissionmoments.com — from $249, 8.5″×11″. The most expensive on the list and the most hands-off: you send emails, photos and talks, and their team formats the book in a few days. Up to 500 pages included, 32¢ a page after that, and a searchable PDF with it. Premium printing is a further $75.
- missionmail.me — free.A digital journal for the whole mission — family comments and hearts each weekly entry — with a paid printed “memory book” offered at the end from six templates. No public price listed for the printed book.
About the price
It’s fair to notice MissionMems costs more than mymissionarybook.com or mymissionletters.com’s headline price. Here’s the honest version of why, rather than a reason to look past it:
- Every book gets the same spec — a hardcover with a printed, gloss-laminated case and white end papers, 100 lb gloss paper, and full color on every page, at 8.5″×11″. There is no upgrade to buy.
- Matched for size and paper rather than sticker price, it stops looking expensive. mymissionletters.com’s coated, closest-to-8.5×11 option is $259 — $59 more than MissionMems, for a book that’s still smaller. Their $99 and mymissionarybook.com’s $149.99 are both real prices for a real, smaller book — not the same book at a discount.
- $200 covers up to 250 pages, then 50 cents a page after that.mymissionarybook.com’s typical finished book, by their own numbers, is 80–120 pages — a shorter record of a longer story. Nothing is cut to stay under the price here: a longer mission makes a longer, more expensive book, never a shorter one.
If a smaller, cheaper keepsake is genuinely what you want, mymissionarybook.com or mymissionletters.com’s $99 are real, reasonable options, and they’re said so plainly above.
How to actually choose
Once you set price aside, there are only three questions that separate these services, and the answers tend to decide it quickly.
Do you want to make a book, or receive one?
This is the real fork, and it matters more than any price on this page. Missionary Memories, mymission.com and myfieldbound.com’s $179 tier all hand you an editor: layouts to choose, photographs to place, captions to write. That is genuinely better if you want to make something yourself, and it is the version that most often gets abandoned somewhere around letter thirty, because it is a real project and life is busy. mymissionmoments.com, mymissionarybook.com and MissionMems hand you a finished book to check instead.
Is anything allowed to be left out?
Ask each service what happens when there are more letters than the book has room for. Some shorten, some select the best, some stop. MissionMems does none of those: every weekly letter prints in full and the book gets longer, up to 452 pages, the most our printer binds in one book. That is also why the price moves with the mission rather than staying flat. A flat price and a page cap are the same sentence said two ways.
Does anything get rewritten?
Some services run the letters through a grammar and spelling pass, and advertise it as a feature. Whether that is a feature depends entirely on what you wanted: a tidier book, or the nineteen-year-old who wrote it. MissionMems never changes a word, including the misspelled ones.
Five questions worth asking any of them
Whichever direction you lean, these are the answers that are hard to find on a homepage and easy to get by email. Asking them of two or three services takes an evening and is the single most useful hour in this whole decision.
- What size is the finished book, in inches?Not “hardcover” — the trim. A 6″×9″ and an 8.5″×11″ are different objects.
- What happens if the mission produces more pages than the price covers? A per-page rate, a cap, a second volume, or editing down. All four exist on this list.
- Can I read the whole thing before I pay to print it? And is that the real book, or a sample.
- What happens to photographs that came as links rather than attachments? Most services cannot see them at all, and most missions have some.
- Who can see the letters, and what happens to them afterwards? These are private family documents and the answer should be immediate and specific.
If what you pictured was something the size of a real hardcover, big enough that nothing had to be left out to fit it, and arriving finished rather than waiting to be built — that is the corner MissionMems is in, and this list now has one other service standing near it.