For newspaper publishers
Obituaries that arrive typeset, priced and paid.
Families and funeral homes place them online, any hour. Your staff gets a print-ready file built to your columns and fonts — with the payment already on its way to your bank.
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Halvorson, MargaretObituary · 2 col × 7.25 in$130.50Paid
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Okafor, GraceObituary · 2 col × 5 in$90.00Paid
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Lindgren, WalterDeath notice · flat rate$25.00Paid
The obituary desk, rebuilt
Less retyping. Less phone tag. No chasing payment.
Obituaries matter to your readers more than almost anything you print. The process behind them shouldn’t eat your staff’s week.
Today
- Word files, phone photos and last-minute changes by email
- Retyping and restyling every piece to fit your column
- Measuring column inches by hand to quote a price
- Proofs back and forth by email and phone
- Chasing payment after it has already run
With Place Obituaries
- The family or funeral home does the typing. They write it, add the photo and pick the date — nights and weekends included.
- The layout is built to your page. Your column widths, fonts and column counts, every time.
- The price comes from your rate card. Calculated from the finished layout, to the penny.
- They approve the exact proof. What they sign off on is what you print.
- It’s paid before it reaches you. Card payment at checkout, deposited to your own Stripe account.
What it does
Everything the obituary desk needs.
Built for community papers: weekly deadlines, real column inches, small staffs.
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Print-ready, to your spec
Column widths, fonts and depths set per paper, from one to six columns. A PDF for the page — or an InDesign IDML file when you want to nudge the spacing.
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Priced by your rate card
Column inch, per word, or per word plus photo. Flat-rate death notices, minimum charges and multi-paper discounts. No more quoting by ruler.
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Paid before it runs
Customers pay by card at checkout through Stripe, and it goes straight to your own Stripe account. No invoices, no collections, no checks in the mail.
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Writing help built in
Families can paste a finished piece or answer a few questions and get a draft to edit. An automatic proofreading pass flags likely typos before it reaches your staff.
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Your queue, your call
Staff review every piece, request changes or approve it. A ready-for-print queue, a daily print summary, and an email at every step.
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Online, too
Publish automatically to your WordPress site, or drop a recent-obituaries widget onto any website. Every obituary gets its own page to share.
Getting started
Up and running without an IT department.
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We set up your papers
Rate card, deadlines, publication days, column widths and fonts. You check a proof before anything goes live.
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Connect your Stripe account
A short Stripe sign-up in your paper’s name. Payments land in your bank on Stripe’s normal schedule.
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Share your link
Run it in the paper, put it on your website, hand it to your funeral homes. Your papers are featured first.
Your own link
One address for every obituary your paper sells — in print, on your site and on the funeral home’s desk.
- 1–6
- column layouts
- 3
- ways to price, plus flat-rate notices
- 24/7
- online placement
Built in a newsroom
Place Obituaries was built at a working community newspaper to fix our own obituary desk. Our three papers run on it today.
Citizen Publishing · Windom, Minnesota
Questions publishers ask
The honest answers.
Do we still review every obituary?
Yes. Nothing runs until your staff approves it. You can send it back to the family with requested changes, and your team sees every piece in a ready-for-print queue.
Our page isn’t standard. Will it fit?
Each paper gets its own column widths, page depths, fonts and allowed column counts (one through six). Pieces too long for your page are flagged before checkout instead of surprising you on deadline.
How does the money work?
You set your own rates. Customers pay by card at checkout through Stripe, and the payment goes to your paper’s own Stripe account. Place Obituaries’ fee is a percentage of each placement, taken automatically — there’s nothing to invoice. Ask us for your rate.
What does the family see?
A calm, step-by-step site under the Place Obituaries name. When they arrive through your link, your papers are featured first, with your deadlines and prices.
Does it work with our website?
If your site runs WordPress, obituaries can publish there automatically. For any other site, a recent-obituaries widget can be embedded with a single snippet.
See it with your own papers.
Fifteen minutes, your questions, the live system. Bring a rate card if you have one handy.