The #1 Name in Direct Cremations Online
Summary:
Fewer and fewer Americans are opting for a traditional funeral, a trend driven by three factors: the high cost of traditional burial; enhanced ecological awareness and secularization of the American culture; and the increased mobility of our population. Today, 58% of Americans choose cremation as their end-of-life disposition, projected to grow to 64% by 2025,* and in some states the cremation rate is already greater than 80%. Cremstar is an online direct cremation and memorialization solution that uses digital automation to disrupt the traditional funeral industry.
Problem:
Most funerals cost $7-10K, and most cremations $6K. Direct cremations (no embalming, casket, or service) average $2-3K.* To put that in perspective, just 39% of Americans can afford a $1K emergency. Plus, arrangements made through traditional funeral homes average two 1-hour, in-person meetings, and another half hour of travel (150 minutes) at a time when most customers are addled with grief. Finally, traditional burials have a 23% higher ecological cost (Berkeley Planning Journal):
- More than 800,000 gallons of formaldehyde (a carcinogen) are dumped into the earth as a result of burials every year in the US. That’s enough to fill one and a quarter Olympic-sized swimming pools.
- Conventional burials in the US use 30 million board feet of hardwoods, 2,700 tons of copper and bronze, 104,272 tons of steel, and 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete every year.
- The amount of casket wood alone is equivalent to about 4 million acres of forest and could build around 4.5 million homes.
Solution:
We deliver low cost, convenience, and an end-of-life solution that’s 23% greener than traditional burial. Cremstar’s direct cremations begin at just $895. Consumers no longer have to be exploited by funeral home “middlemen”; they can go online and set up a cremation directly themselves in just 15 minutes. (Note: Cremstar is Powered by Styx Logistics.)
Each cremation through cremstar.com automatically generates a free online memorial @ MemoryBox, the nation’s premier memorialization website and app, where friends and family of the deceased can contribute photos and comments, and gather together to honor their lost loved one. MemoryBox has been clinically proven to be beneficial in grief recovery. In addition, MemoryBox offers customers the opportunity to hold virtual Life Celebration Events in the metaverse. (Click here for a sample MemoryBox in the Metaverse.)
We also offer customers a wide variety of bespoke funeral products, from urns to scattering stones and lithophane mobiles & night lights, made here in America using cutting-edge 3D printing technologies from Final Spring. Check out our popular Cremstar Scattering Tube.
Finally, to offset the carbon footprint of each cremation and to help ensure a green final legacy, Cremstar makes a donation to the National Forest Service in the name of the deceased, underwriting the planting of a seedling in their honor.
The following chart details the environmental impact of cremation versus traditional burial as measured by a composite measure called the ‘shadow price’; the higher the shadow price, the higher the cost to the environment and the less eco-friendly it is. Using these ecological metrics, burial has a 23% higher environmental cost than cremation.
* CANA, 2022