A small engraved plaque for a headstone, urn or keepsake. One scan with any phone opens a memorial page holding unlimited photos, videos, their life story and tributes from everyone who loved them. $47.99 once, hosting included, with no subscription and nothing to renew.
What arrives in the post
A plaque measuring 5 by 5 centimetres, roughly two inches square, engraved into anodized metal with a champagne-brass rim. Industrial 3M adhesive is already applied to the back. You clean and dry the stone, peel, and press. There is no drilling, no bracket and no hole left behind, which matters because most cemetery objections are about damage to the monument rather than about QR codes.
The code is engraved, not printed. Printed codes sit on top of the metal and give up to UV and frost; an engraved code is part of the surface, and the error correction built into the QR standard means it still reads when it is wet, dusty or partly obscured. If your plaque ever stops scanning, we replace it free, for life.
What one scan opens
The visitor points their ordinary camera at the plaque. No app, no account, no instructions needed at a graveside. The memorial page opens in their browser: a portrait and a line to remember them by, their life story along a timeline, unlimited photos and videos in full quality, a voice recording, their song, and a place for family and friends to add their own memories. There is no advertising on it and there never will be.
You choose whether the page is public or private, and you can switch at any time. A private memorial is visible only to the people you invite by email. You can add family members as managers, so building it is not one person's job, and so the memorial does not depend on one person's login existing forever.
Two plaques — $79.99, for the headstone and for home
Three plaques — $111.99
That is the whole price. The memorial page comes with it: hosting, daily backups, unlimited photos and video, an ad-free page and every improvement we ship afterwards. There is no subscription, no yearly fee and no charge per plaque or per page, so nothing can lapse because a card expired. Shipping is a flat $4.90 worldwide, however many plaques are in the order.
We would rather say plainly how that is funded than let you wonder. The cost of keeping a memorial online is real and it recurs; we carry it out of the price of the plaque instead of billing a grieving family again every year. What we will not do is promise forever in the way the services in what happens if a memorial website shuts down did. If we ever had to stop, you would get long notice and a full export of everything you uploaded.
Guarantees
30-day money-back guarantee. If it is not right, send it back.
Lifetime scan guarantee. If the plaque ever fails to scan, we replace it free.
Ships worldwide within 48 hours, flat $4.90. Every plaque is engraved to order. If you need it for a service, an unveiling or an anniversary, write to us after ordering and we will do everything we can to meet the date.
Your page is never deleted for non-payment. There is no payment to miss. Your photographs, videos, recordings and tributes stay stored and stay yours.
What actually happens, from order to first scan
The plaque and the page are built in parallel, which is the first thing worth knowing. You are never waiting on the post to begin.
The day you order. Your access link arrives by email within minutes. There is no account to create and nothing to activate. You can open it on a phone in a hospital car park, add one photograph, and stop. Nothing has to be finished that week, or that year.
While it is being engraved. Every plaque is cut to order, and its code is linked to your memorial page before it leaves us, so there is nothing to pair or configure when the parcel arrives. Orders ship worldwide within 48 hours for a flat $4.90, however many plaques are in the order. If you need it for a service, an unveiling or an anniversary, write to us after ordering and we will do everything we can to meet the date.
While it travels. This is the part families are surprised by. The page is already live, so you can send the link to relatives and have photographs coming back before the plaque has landed. Most of the work of a memorial is gathering, and gathering takes weeks.
The day it arrives. Choose the spot first: the lower corner of an upright stone, reachable while standing, clear of the inscription. Hold the plaque there with your thumb, backing still on, and scan it from where a visitor would stand. Check the signal while you are there. Then brush off the grit, wash the area with plain water, let it dry completely, peel, and press hard for a full minute using your weight rather than your fingertips. Leave it alone for a day.
Fit it on a mild dry day rather than a freezing one — 3M asks for a surface above roughly 50 F (10 C) for this class of tape, and cold stone is the commonest reason a plaque later works loose. Cemetery rules vary, so ask the office before you fix anything to a monument.
Why an engraved code outlasts a printed one
A phone reads a QR code by finding contrast: dark squares against light ones. How that contrast is made decides how long it survives outdoors, and it is the one technical thing worth understanding before you spend anything.
A printed code makes contrast with pigment, sitting on the surface under a clear laminate. Ultraviolet light breaks pigment down, so black drifts to brown and then to grey, while the laminate yellows and lifts at the edges. Once water gets under a lifted edge the code goes quickly. On a south-facing stone, a printed label is doing well to reach its fifth summer still looking like itself.
An engraved code makes contrast with geometry. The dark modules are cut into the metal, so what the camera sees is the shape of the surface rather than something laid on top of it. Nothing can fade off a surface that was never coated. Anodizing works on the same principle: it is not a paint but a hard oxide layer grown out of the metal itself, so there is no film to peel and no edge for frost to get under.
Then there is the redundancy built into the QR standard. Every code stores its data more than once, so part of the pattern can be missing and the code still resolves. The standard defines four levels of that error correction, tolerating damage to roughly 7, 15, 25 and 30 percent of the symbol. It is why a plaque with pollen across a corner, or rain on it, or a scratch thrown up by a mower, still opens on the first try.
It is not magic, and the limit is worth knowing. The three large squares in the corners are what a scanner uses to locate the code before it reads anything, so if those are buried under moss or snow, no amount of error correction helps. Wipe them and it reads.
Behind all of it sits the simplest promise we make: if your plaque ever fails to scan, we replace it free. That is the lifetime scan guarantee, and it is not restricted to manufacturing faults.
Headstones, urns, benches and the shelf at home
The plaque is 5×5 cm (2×2 in) with industrial 3M adhesive already applied, so it goes onto almost anything flat, clean and dry without tools. What varies is how well the bond holds.
Polished granite is the best surface there is: dense, close to non-porous, and the one cemeteries are most used to seeing a small plaque on.
Marble, limestone and sandstone are softer and more porous. They hold moisture at the bond line and can keep a faint adhesive outline, so consider the base rather than the face.
Bronze and stainless markers are fine once cleaned of wax or polish.
Wood holds well if it is sealed. Raw weathered wood does not.
Glass and glazed ceramic are excellent, though a curved urn gives the adhesive far less contact than flat stone, so choose the flattest area you can find.
Which brings up the thing most families work out a few months in. A grave is a single fixed point that somebody has to travel to, and the people who most want to sit with these memories are frequently the ones living furthest away. A plaque on the stone serves whoever visits. It does nothing for a daughter three time zones away on an ordinary Tuesday night.
That is why most families order two. One on the headstone, one on the urn, the photo frame, the box of letters, the arm of a bench. Both can open the same page, or each can open its own; you decide plaque by plaque while you set them up. Two plaques are $79.99 and three are $111.99, and there is no hosting fee either way — every plaque in the order and every page attached to it is covered by what you pay once.
Where ashes were scattered and there is no marker at all, the one at home is not the second plaque. It is the only one, and it is the reason we make them plain enough to sit on a shelf without explaining themselves.
What a Lumestone memorial page actually holds
The plaque is the easy half. What decides whether any of this was worth doing is the page it opens.
It holds unlimited photographs and video, with no storage limit and no upgrade tier waiting behind a cap — which matters more than it sounds once relatives start sending scanned prints by the hundred. Alongside them sit a life story written in plain language, a life line of the moments that shaped them, a recording of their voice, and the song that belonged to them. Then room for everyone else: tributes, and a candle any visitor can light without making an account.
You choose whether the memorial is public or private, and you can change your mind at any time without touching the plaque. A public page can be found by anyone who scans or searches, which is how old colleagues and relatives nobody had heard from in years sometimes find their way back. A private one is visible only to the people you invite by email.
Family members can be added as managers, and we would encourage that early. It spreads the work, it produces four people's photographs instead of one person's, and it means the memorial does not depend on a single login existing forever.
There is no advertising on any of it and there never will be, we do not sell data, and everything is backed up daily.
Two things it deliberately does not do, since you would find out eventually: it will not navigate you across a large cemetery to the plot by GPS, and it does not send automatic anniversary reminders. Both are on our list. Neither, in our experience, is the reason a family is glad they did this.
Rather than describe it further, look at one. Margaret Bennett's memorial is a real, live Lumestone page, open to anybody. It is exactly what a visitor sees when they scan — on any phone, in the browser, with no app and nothing to install.
The part about paying once, said plainly
You are right to check what happens after the sale. A memorial page is not a product that gets finished and shipped: it is a small permanent obligation — servers, storage, daily backups, a domain, and somebody to answer the email when a relative writes in 2039. Those cost money every year, whether or not anybody is charged for them.
Our answer is to charge you once and carry that cost out of it. The plaque is a one-time payment of $47.99 with a 30-day money-back guarantee, and it includes the memorial page: hosting, daily backups, unlimited photos and video, and every improvement we ship afterwards. No subscription, no yearly fee, no charge per plaque or per page, and nothing that can lapse because a card expired. You will not hear from us again about money.
What we will not do is dress that up as a promise nobody can keep. The internet is not short of memorial services that said forever and closed anyway; we wrote the list down, with dates and sources. So here is ours, in plain terms: we do not delete a memorial for non-payment, because there is no payment to miss. If we ever had to stop operating, you would get long notice and a full export of every photo, video and word you uploaded — not a dead link one morning.
And whatever anyone promises, keep your own originals somewhere safe. That advice applies to every provider, including us.
Questions, answered
How is it attached to the headstone?
The back has a strong 3M adhesive layer, so it sticks on like a premium tile - just make sure the surface is clean and dry. It holds firmly in all weather. It can also sit on a plaque, urn, bench or keepsake at home.
Is it really weatherproof?
Yes. It's engraved into anodized metal that resists rain, frost, heat and UV, so it keeps looking beautiful and scanning reliably for decades. And if it ever stops scanning, we replace it - free.
Am I allowed to attach it to a headstone?
At 5x5 cm it's smaller than most vase medallions and attaches without any drilling - no holes, no damage to the stone. Rules vary by cemetery, so check with your cemetery office if you're unsure. It also sits beautifully on an urn, a frame or a keepsake at home.
Can I keep the memorial private?
Absolutely. You choose public or private at any time. Private memorials are only visible to people you invite by email.
Do visitors need to download an app?
No. Anyone can scan it with their phone's normal camera and the memorial opens instantly in their browser.
How quickly will it arrive?
Every plaque is engraved to order and ships worldwide within 48 hours, for a flat $4.90 however many plaques you order. If you need it for a service, unveiling or anniversary, write us after ordering and we'll do everything we can to meet your date.
What's included?
A unique, weatherproof engraved Lumestone plaque with industrial 3M adhesive, your own fully customizable memorial page - unlimited photos, videos, life story, tributes and a slideshow. Hosting is part of the price you pay today - no subscription.
I ordered 2 or 3 plaques - do they share one memorial?
Your choice. During setup, each plaque can open its own memorial page - or you can link several plaques to the same page: one on the headstone, one on a keepsake at home. You decide plaque by plaque while you set them up.
Does the QR code ever expire?
No. The code is a fixed web address engraved into metal, so it cannot expire, be re-registered or be sold on to somebody else. What it points at is your memorial page, and keeping that page online is our job, not another bill: it is covered by the single payment you make when you order. There is nothing to renew and nothing that can lapse, so the plaque on the stone never needs replacing. And if the plaque itself ever stops scanning, we replace it free for life.
What if the code gets scratched, muddy or covered in moss?
It almost always still scans. Every QR code stores its data more than once, so pollen, rain, mud and light scratching rarely stop a read. Because the code is engraved rather than printed, a scratch changes how the light falls but leaves the cut pattern underneath intact. The one real limit is the three large squares in the corners: a scanner uses those to find the code before it reads anything at all. If moss or snow covers them, wipe the face with plain water and a soft cloth and it reads again.
Will it work if there is no mobile signal at the cemetery?
No, and we would rather say so plainly than let you find out at the graveside. The code holds a web address, so the phone needs a data connection to open the memorial. Older churchyards and rural cemeteries sometimes have very little coverage. Walk to the plot with a phone before you decide where the plaque goes and check the signal where a visitor would stand. It is also worth emailing the memorial link to the family, because most relatives will not stand at the grave in a given year but will open a link on a birthday.
Can I change the memorial page after the plaque has been engraved?
Yes, for as long as you want to. The plaque holds a link, not the content, so nothing you change on the page needs a new plaque. You can add photos years later, rewrite the life story, swap the song, switch the page between public and private, and add family as managers long after the plaque is on the stone. That is the practical difference between a memorial page and an inscription: a grandchild born in 2040 can be added to one and never to the other.
Can I move the plaque to a different stone later?
Usually, with patience, but plan the position rather than rely on it. The adhesive is industrial and meant to be permanent. Removing it means warming the plaque gently with a hair dryer, working behind it with fishing line or dental floss, then lifting the residue with a citrus-based adhesive remover. On polished granite that leaves no trace; on marble or other porous stone a faint outline can remain. If you want the memorial in two places, a second plaque linked to the same page is the easier answer.
How do I clean it?
Plain water, a soft cloth, a gentle wipe, then dry it. That is the whole routine and it is rarely needed more than once a year. Avoid scouring pads and abrasive creams, which scratch the finish and dull the contrast the code depends on. Whatever you use on the headstone ends up on the plaque, so follow the same conservation advice: the National Park Service recommends soft brushes and neutral-pH cleaners only, and warns against wire brushes, power washers and bleach. All three damage stone.
Will it still work in twenty years, when phones have changed?
Very likely, for two reasons. The code is an ordinary web address in a published international standard that phone cameras have read natively for years, so nothing proprietary sits between the plaque and the page. And the address is ours to keep serving. Nobody can honestly promise what a phone will do in 2046, so we cover the half we control: if the plaque ever fails to scan we replace it free, and the page behind it stays hosted and backed up without a further charge to you.
How big is it really, next to a vase medallion?
It is 5 by 5 cm, about two inches square, which is smaller than most vase medallions and about the size of a large postage stamp. On an upright stone it sits quietly in a lower corner without competing with the inscription. It carries no name and no dates, only the code, because the stone already carries their name. Nothing is drilled: the industrial 3M adhesive is already applied to the back, so there are no holes, no bracket and no work for a monument mason.
Does it work on granite, marble, bronze, wood and glass?
Yes, with something to watch on each. Polished granite is the best surface there is, dense and close to non-porous. Marble, limestone and sandstone are softer and more porous, hold moisture at the bond line and can keep a faint adhesive outline, so consider the base rather than the face. Bronze and stainless are fine once cleaned of wax or polish. Sealed wood holds well, raw weathered wood does not. Glass and glazed ceramic are excellent, though a curved urn gives the adhesive much less contact, so use the flattest area you can find.
How does it cope with extreme cold and salt air?
The plaque copes well with both. It is engraved anodized metal, so there is no ink to wash off and no laminate to lift, and anodized finishes are specified for exterior use in coastal conditions. The weak point in a freezing climate is not the plaque but the bond underneath it: moisture in porous stone freezes at the bond line and pries slowly across several winters. Dense polished stone and a mild, dry application day are what prevent that. Near the sea, an occasional rinse with fresh water is all it asks.
Can I order before the headstone is placed?
Yes, and many families do. Your access link arrives by email when you order, so the memorial page can be built and shared with relatives while the stone is still months away. Keep the plaque indoors in its packaging until the monument is set. When you do fit it, choose a mild dry day: 3M's guidance for this class of tape asks for a surface above roughly 50 F, or 10 C, and cold stone is the commonest reason a plaque later works loose.
Can I use it on a cremation urn or a memorial bench?
Yes. The same plaque works on an urn, a columbarium niche, a memorial bench, a tree marker or a keepsake box at home, and families who scattered ashes often make the object at home the fixed point instead of a grave. Two practical notes. Curved surfaces give the adhesive less contact than flat stone, so use the flattest face available. And a bench or a tree in a park usually belongs to a council or a trust, so ask them the same way you would ask a cemetery office.
Who owns the photos and videos I upload?
You do. Uploading something to a memorial page does not hand it to us. We store it and display it so the page works, and that is all it is used for. There is no advertising anywhere on a Lumestone memorial and we do not sell data. You can delete anything you have added at any time, and you decide who else may add to the page by choosing who becomes a manager. If the memorial is private, only the people you invite by email can see any of it.
Can I download everything I have uploaded?
Yes, though not yet as a single click. A one-button export of an entire memorial is on our list rather than in the product today, so here is how it works in the meantime: you can save individual photos and videos straight back out of the page, and if you want a copy of everything at once, write to us and we will put the whole archive together for you. The advice we give every family, and it applies to every provider including us, is to keep your own originals somewhere safe rather than treat any website as your only copy.
What happens to the memorial when I die?
Nothing stops. There is no yearly payment to fail, no card to expire and nobody who has to remember a renewal on your behalf, which is the part families worry about most. The page stays exactly as you left it. Add at least one family member as a manager early, ideally somebody a generation younger, so there is always someone who can add to it and look after it. Adding them is included and it takes a minute.
Will the memorial page show up in Google?
Only if you choose to make it public. A public memorial can be found by search engines, which is how old colleagues and distant relatives sometimes find their way to it. A private memorial is visible only to the people you invite by email, so there is nothing there for a search engine to open. You can switch between the two at any time and the plaque never changes. One honest caveat: if a page has been public for a while, search engines can hold a cached copy for a short time after you make it private.
How many photos and videos can I upload?
As many as you have. There is no photo cap, no video cap, no storage limit and no upgrade tier to buy when relatives start sending scanned prints by the hundred. The practical limit is your own upload connection rather than anything we impose. Video is added the same way pictures are, from a phone or a computer. All of it is included in what you pay when you order, for every plaque and every page in that order.
Can I add a second plaque later and link it to the memorial I already made?
Yes. A new plaque can be pointed at an existing memorial page while you set it up, so one on the headstone and one on the urn at home open exactly the same photos, stories and tributes. There is no hosting fee either way, so a later plaque never adds a running cost. If you already know you want more than one, the two-pack at $79.99 and the three-pack at $111.99 cost less than ordering singly.
Can I test the QR code before I stick it on?
Yes, and you should. The code is linked to your memorial page before the plaque ships, so it works the moment it arrives. Hold it against the stone with your thumb, backing still on, and scan it from where a visitor would stand. Check the mobile signal while you are there. Only then clean the surface, peel and press. Press hard for a full minute using your body weight rather than your fingertips, and leave it alone for a day while the adhesive reaches full strength.
What do I do if a visitor leaves an unkind tribute?
You remove it. Tributes are yours to manage: as the owner, or as a manager you have added, you can delete anything left on the page, and nothing a visitor writes is permanent. If it keeps happening, switching the memorial to private stops it entirely, since then only the people you invite by email can see or add anything at all. And if someone is being persistent, write to us and we will help. It is rare, but it is a fair thing to ask before you put an open page behind a code on a public stone.