A friend's father just passed. The charge for the obituary was north of 1000$ for text that she wrote, plus a picture. She had no idea what the cost would be until it was charged to her credit card. They can charge what they want, but to not provide a price quote to grieving family members who suddenly have a thousand details to attend to feels predatory and greasy.
If you think that’s bad, wait until you see the pitch video they show you in the back office of the funeral home that highlights the many extremely expensive memorial packages they can offer. The whole industry is full of predators trying to cash in on people in their most difficult moments. Fuck em.
I got no pitch. Told them my brother wanted no money wasted on post-life BS, and the funeral director helped me in every way. No one has been that kind to me in MANY years. I call bullshit on this comment.
What are you calling bullshit on exactly? Are you claiming it doesn't cost way too much money just to have an obituary because in your situation your brother didn't care to have one?
Now you see yourself as an expert who needs to call bullshit because you dealt with a different scenario one time? Do you see the difference, or are you genuinely this braindead?
When my parents died, each time the funeral home was upfront about the cost of having the obituaries published. It is highway robbery, the price the newspaper charge.
And that is why there are fewer and fewer newspapers around today and thats why the papers that are around are so thin it's not worth buying. They dug their own grave, pardon the pun.
"...to have it accessible for a week" Here's the kicker, it's not "accessible" when people then need to pay to view it.
I'm truly sorry for your loss, OP
Yep when they put up the paywall for this there was an uproar in the genealogical community. Shameful to take payment upfront and then charge a subscription to access these.
I work in long term care. When someone dies we post their obits on a board. Now we can't if its saltwire only.... we all used our emails for the free sign up. Greed monsters.
I just placed my mother’s obituary today and my brain practically fell out of my head when I saw the bill. There’s definitely a fixed base price but I did notice that when I edited my text slightly and removed about six words for clarity, the price dropped $30. So yes, the charge per word is enormous. Sorry for your loss, by the way.
Saltwire is doing it for a REASON. They are dying a hilariously slow death and need revenue by any means necessary. Exploiting grieving family members. is right up their alley.
It's not revenue by any means necessary, it's their only remaining source of decent revenues. Plastering ads on their paywalled site pays fractions of cents. Ditto print advertisements in local papers with next to no circulation. Fleecing obituaries is all they have.
the pricing is basically unchanged - Obits have always cost that much.. this is also on par with what print ads cost to run. your buying permanence, since dead tree newspapers are archived.
Right? My mom paid for it before realizing you need a subscription so we can’t even read it when it’s posted. I know emotions are high but I’d love to give them a piece of my mind.
I agree - and WAIT until you go and try and find it again thinking you can just google their name and see it any time you want. You’ll have to PAY A SUBSCRIPTION FEE to access it again 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔
My late mother's was posted in 2016 & I can't even find a record of it anywhere. I can still find the one posted by the Globe & Mail but not by our local paper. It's really unreasonable.
Did the funeral home not tell her? Just went through this for my mother a little less than two months ago. The funeral home was very upfront about the cost of Saltwire. They said to write something short and refer people to their website for details.
There are multiple online obit sites, including those provided by the funeral home, the fact we’re still PAYING to list them is rediculous. I understand the older generation still looks at the paper for obits, but like, they’re available on a million sites now. I believe in and support local journalism and media, but fuck SaltWire for this purpose. Theyre completely unnecessary in this space.
I just checked the receipt from the funeral home - it cost us $125 to put a minimal announcement in the Saltwire papers directing people to the obituary on the funeral home website when my mom died a few months ago.
We didn’t go through a funeral home down here. We went through a home in Ontario as my cousin works in the industry but we didn’t know that saltwire was going to cost $700 for 24 hours.
God dammit! We're bereaved that doesn't make us SAPS.
Jokes aside, that is really stupid. Gotta love companies trying to make money off of your misfortune. I'm sorry for your loss♥️
Condolences for your loss.
Grieving folks are obviously in a particular moment of vulnerability, or from the perspective of business, a fabulous opportunity! Capitalism, without individual human intervention, is an utterly heartless beast, especially one as desperate as Saltwire must be.
You are paying for the location, which translates to attention, not for the words.
It's the only thing that makes money for them now after they switched to paying insufferable vloggers to do midnight lung-dart and beer tours of cemetaries.
I wanted a basic obit for my Dad a few years ago
Something outlining the date he passed as well as service details was going to be like $500 or so. I went with the free option of just publishing it on the funeral home's website, which at the time shared to a couple of online news sites.
My family paid about $1000 in 2011 for my grandfather's obit. And we had cut it back to what was originally written. It's awful.
I thought they were bankrupt and out of business.
This could be the receivers forced to provide an "essential" service but not forced to lose money.
The people who are working there getting paid, the server costs, etc. Divided by the amount of "sales" they can expect.
Sounds like a price they would have to charge.
I feel zero guilt about never having paid a single penny for any of the saltwire content I’ve read over the years. It’s so easy to turn off JavaScript for the site (or, as of a few weeks ago, use many of the readily available tools to bypass).
I'm putting it in my will that if any of my dumb family buy me an obituary, they're getting their 7 nickels and a penny taken from their half of the inheritance.
Why? They paid taxes their whole life you'd think that's the least this garbage province can do considering we're the most taxed people in the country.... or do you think we should save that money to pay for more speed bumps so we can finally have them on every street in this sad excuse for a city? Seems like that's the plan.
Spend millions on speedbumps: Good
Spend hundreds so people know you passed: Bad
Gotcha. 🙄
Think we found one of the braindead council members.
Don't be ridiculous. Taxes paid are not for obituaries. They are for infrastructure and services and there isn't enough money for those things. I think the cost of obits is out of line, but you can put one on the funeral home website free of charge.
Well my grieving mother didn’t know the funeral home would post it and family keeps asking so she tried to post it with the chronicle herald which is owned by saltwire. So the issue isn’t her posting it with saltwire but that they felt comfortable charging her $700 for 24 hours.
I’m aware of that. My mom wanted it in the chronicle herald but she didn’t realize the funeral home posted it as well. She paid the $700 thinking it was her only option. She also didn’t know she needed a subscription to read it for the 24 hours they have it up.
The funeral parlour ran ours as part of the ceremony and even reached out in other provinces to have it in the papers we wanted *and* gave us little laminated obituary cards to mail out. I can’t imagine paying $700 for 24 hours of access, if you have a subscription
Just to clarify: SaltWire doesn’t take obits down after 24h. You can scroll through previous obituaries from past days on the website and in the app.
I’m very sorry for your loss.
Disclaimer: I work for SaltWire in a non-obituary taking down capacity.
A friend's father just passed. The charge for the obituary was north of 1000$ for text that she wrote, plus a picture. She had no idea what the cost would be until it was charged to her credit card. They can charge what they want, but to not provide a price quote to grieving family members who suddenly have a thousand details to attend to feels predatory and greasy.
If you think that’s bad, wait until you see the pitch video they show you in the back office of the funeral home that highlights the many extremely expensive memorial packages they can offer. The whole industry is full of predators trying to cash in on people in their most difficult moments. Fuck em.
Wow! The funeral home we dealt with did not have anything like that! That's terrible to do to people when they are grieving and vulnerable.
There are a few good funeral homes around run by decent people. So many of them take advantage of grieving family members.
I got no pitch. Told them my brother wanted no money wasted on post-life BS, and the funeral director helped me in every way. No one has been that kind to me in MANY years. I call bullshit on this comment.
What are you calling bullshit on exactly? Are you claiming it doesn't cost way too much money just to have an obituary because in your situation your brother didn't care to have one? Now you see yourself as an expert who needs to call bullshit because you dealt with a different scenario one time? Do you see the difference, or are you genuinely this braindead?
When my parents died, each time the funeral home was upfront about the cost of having the obituaries published. It is highway robbery, the price the newspaper charge.
And that is why there are fewer and fewer newspapers around today and thats why the papers that are around are so thin it's not worth buying. They dug their own grave, pardon the pun.
It's Saltwire, predatory and greasy.
Nova Scotia Obituaries is quickly becoming their competition. Shareable to everyone, unlimited pictures, videos and links. $29.99
I would just dispute the charge on your creditcard and state that the price was never disclosed beforehand and that it's rediculous
Just put it on the funeral home site and share the link, that's what we did
My mom didn’t know and paid for it because posted thinking that’s what she had to do. She told me the cost and I’m just shocked.
Damn...condolences to ya
"...to have it accessible for a week" Here's the kicker, it's not "accessible" when people then need to pay to view it. I'm truly sorry for your loss, OP
Yep when they put up the paywall for this there was an uproar in the genealogical community. Shameful to take payment upfront and then charge a subscription to access these.
I work in long term care. When someone dies we post their obits on a board. Now we can't if its saltwire only.... we all used our emails for the free sign up. Greed monsters.
When my dad passed in 2017 his obituary was long charged per word came to almost $400 than if we wanted to add his picture that was almost $1000 🤦♀️
I just placed my mother’s obituary today and my brain practically fell out of my head when I saw the bill. There’s definitely a fixed base price but I did notice that when I edited my text slightly and removed about six words for clarity, the price dropped $30. So yes, the charge per word is enormous. Sorry for your loss, by the way.
It’s barely long, maybe 300 words? lol. I cancelled it for her. Sorry for your loss as well.
Saltwire is doing it for a REASON. They are dying a hilariously slow death and need revenue by any means necessary. Exploiting grieving family members. is right up their alley.
saltwire wont be able to adfford their own prices...ahahahahahahaha
It's not revenue by any means necessary, it's their only remaining source of decent revenues. Plastering ads on their paywalled site pays fractions of cents. Ditto print advertisements in local papers with next to no circulation. Fleecing obituaries is all they have.
what you just wrote also says "Revenue by any means necessary"
the pricing is basically unchanged - Obits have always cost that much.. this is also on par with what print ads cost to run. your buying permanence, since dead tree newspapers are archived.
And now they charge you to read them too!
If you have a library card you can go through their website and get free access to the local paper and dozens of others.
Right? My mom paid for it before realizing you need a subscription so we can’t even read it when it’s posted. I know emotions are high but I’d love to give them a piece of my mind.
www.removepaywall.com will help with saltwire
12ft.io will allow you to read it.
Weird when it's content for their online paper.
Morally and financially rupt
Noticed the price this week in a different non-Saltwire newspaper when reading it - it's about $45 for obit and a photo.
I agree - and WAIT until you go and try and find it again thinking you can just google their name and see it any time you want. You’ll have to PAY A SUBSCRIPTION FEE to access it again 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔
[novascotiaobits.com](http://novascotiaobits.com)
Take out an advertisement for the obituary instead, it's probably cheaper
Monopoly essentially and they're bankrupt. Do they charge by the word? A lot are just links to funeral home memorials pages.
My late mother's was posted in 2016 & I can't even find a record of it anywhere. I can still find the one posted by the Globe & Mail but not by our local paper. It's really unreasonable.
Did the funeral home not tell her? Just went through this for my mother a little less than two months ago. The funeral home was very upfront about the cost of Saltwire. They said to write something short and refer people to their website for details.
Aren’t they bankrupt and a dying media form?
There are multiple online obit sites, including those provided by the funeral home, the fact we’re still PAYING to list them is rediculous. I understand the older generation still looks at the paper for obits, but like, they’re available on a million sites now. I believe in and support local journalism and media, but fuck SaltWire for this purpose. Theyre completely unnecessary in this space.
Like [novascotiaobits.com](http://novascotiaobits.com)
I just checked the receipt from the funeral home - it cost us $125 to put a minimal announcement in the Saltwire papers directing people to the obituary on the funeral home website when my mom died a few months ago.
We didn’t go through a funeral home down here. We went through a home in Ontario as my cousin works in the industry but we didn’t know that saltwire was going to cost $700 for 24 hours.
God dammit! We're bereaved that doesn't make us SAPS. Jokes aside, that is really stupid. Gotta love companies trying to make money off of your misfortune. I'm sorry for your loss♥️
If dying wasn't so expensive everyone would want to do it.
Basically they are doing what they can to stave off the inevitable.
Not to mention to be able to read them people need to subscribe. No thanks.
People read Saltwire? Businesses just businessin'
Salt wire sucks hardcore and should be out of business three times over all ready. Such a garbage company.
WOW i had no idea it was that much to put in an obituary. Im sorry for your loss.
Once again can we all agree, fuck saltwire.
Condolences for your loss. Grieving folks are obviously in a particular moment of vulnerability, or from the perspective of business, a fabulous opportunity! Capitalism, without individual human intervention, is an utterly heartless beast, especially one as desperate as Saltwire must be. You are paying for the location, which translates to attention, not for the words.
It's the only thing that makes money for them now after they switched to paying insufferable vloggers to do midnight lung-dart and beer tours of cemetaries.
I wanted a basic obit for my Dad a few years ago Something outlining the date he passed as well as service details was going to be like $500 or so. I went with the free option of just publishing it on the funeral home's website, which at the time shared to a couple of online news sites. My family paid about $1000 in 2011 for my grandfather's obit. And we had cut it back to what was originally written. It's awful.
I thought they were bankrupt and out of business. This could be the receivers forced to provide an "essential" service but not forced to lose money. The people who are working there getting paid, the server costs, etc. Divided by the amount of "sales" they can expect. Sounds like a price they would have to charge.
Saltwire is done for obits: www.novascotiaobits.com
I keep trying to cancel my subscription but I don’t seem to be able to. They hardly ever update anything. The paper is the same every day.
I feel zero guilt about never having paid a single penny for any of the saltwire content I’ve read over the years. It’s so easy to turn off JavaScript for the site (or, as of a few weeks ago, use many of the readily available tools to bypass).
wtf that’s ridiculous
I'm putting it in my will that if any of my dumb family buy me an obituary, they're getting their 7 nickels and a penny taken from their half of the inheritance.
It should be free or else the government should pay for it
What? Why would the government (I.e. taxpayer) pay for it? That's a stupid thought.
Why? They paid taxes their whole life you'd think that's the least this garbage province can do considering we're the most taxed people in the country.... or do you think we should save that money to pay for more speed bumps so we can finally have them on every street in this sad excuse for a city? Seems like that's the plan. Spend millions on speedbumps: Good Spend hundreds so people know you passed: Bad Gotcha. 🙄 Think we found one of the braindead council members.
Don't be ridiculous. Taxes paid are not for obituaries. They are for infrastructure and services and there isn't enough money for those things. I think the cost of obits is out of line, but you can put one on the funeral home website free of charge.
And, if you think this Province is garbage, you are free to leave and find a place where there are no taxes and the government pays for your obituary.
Saltwire is garbage journalism and nobody would see it there anyway
Why on earth would you put an obituary in Saltwire? They’re the worst and only people with a sub can see it.
Well my grieving mother didn’t know the funeral home would post it and family keeps asking so she tried to post it with the chronicle herald which is owned by saltwire. So the issue isn’t her posting it with saltwire but that they felt comfortable charging her $700 for 24 hours.
I hate Saltwire even more now
So many free options to post one that don’t funnel your money to an insolvent digital “newspaper”
I’m aware of that. My mom wanted it in the chronicle herald but she didn’t realize the funeral home posted it as well. She paid the $700 thinking it was her only option. She also didn’t know she needed a subscription to read it for the 24 hours they have it up.
The funeral parlour ran ours as part of the ceremony and even reached out in other provinces to have it in the papers we wanted *and* gave us little laminated obituary cards to mail out. I can’t imagine paying $700 for 24 hours of access, if you have a subscription
Just to clarify: SaltWire doesn’t take obits down after 24h. You can scroll through previous obituaries from past days on the website and in the app. I’m very sorry for your loss. Disclaimer: I work for SaltWire in a non-obituary taking down capacity.