Guide
How Soulium works
From the first candle to a memorial of your own: here you find everything Soulium offers, explained step by step.
Light or dark
Soulium can be shown light or dark, whichever is easier on your eyes.
- At the top, in the menu, there are three small symbols: the screen for “Like device”, the sun for “Light” and the moon for “Dark”.
- “Like device” is the default: Soulium then follows the setting of your phone or computer and, for example, turns dark in the evening when your device does.
- Your choice applies at once on every page and is kept on this device. On another device you choose it there.
Create a memorial
A memorial is a lasting place of remembrance: free to create, in about three minutes, and changeable at any time.
- Choose “Create a memorial” and enter the name, dates and places of the person you want to remember.
- Decide on a virtual gravestone or a photo memorial with one large picture.
- Design the page in the editor and create your account. Others only see the page once you publish it.
- Until then everything stays a draft. Later, too, you can change anything at any time and publish again.
Design the memorial
In the editor you shape the memorial so that it suits the person it remembers.
- Gravestone and inscription: choose a stone, write your words and set font, colour, size and place.
- Picture: upload a photo, crop it and put it where you want it.
- Flowers, lights and ornaments: drag decorations onto the memorial, with the mouse or by tapping.
- Backgrounds for the memorial and the whole page give it a mood of its own.
- The premium membership adds the gravestones, decorations and backgrounds marked premium, a photo album, videos, a life story and your own pictures as backgrounds or decorations.
Light a candle
A candle is the quietest sign of sympathy, and anyone can light one, even without an account.
- Open a memorial and choose “Light a candle”. The candle appears right on the memorial; you can choose its place yourself.
- Add a few words if you like. The candle burns for seven days and visibly grows smaller.
- Signed in, you can ask for an email when your candle has burned out, collected in at most one email a day.
- The white candle is open to everyone; premium members light coloured ones.
Write a condolence
With a condolence you tell the family in your own words that you are thinking of them.
- In the “Condolences” part of a memorial you write your words. Opening phrases help when words are hard to find.
- As a guest your name is enough. With an email address you get a link to delete your entry later.
- Some families approve condolences before they appear. Your entry is not lost then, it only waits a little.
Leave a gift
A rose, a heart, a light: a gift stays visible on the memorial and shows that someone was there.
- Choose “Gift” on the memorial, pick a symbol and add a greeting if you like.
- You decide whether your name, another name or “Anonymous” goes with it.
- You pay with credits from your balance or directly on Stripe's secure payment page, even without an account.
- On days of remembrance such as Easter, Mother's Day, All Saints' Day or Christmas fitting gifts come first, such as daffodils, a grave light or an Advent wreath. What these days mean is under “Days of remembrance” at the bottom of every page.
The Hall of Lights
For everyone who is missed, also for people without a memorial of their own: one shared room full of candles.
- Light a candle with your words. It stands on one of the shelves, together with the candles of many others.
- Tap a candle to read its words, or read them under “Words to the candles”.
- With “See all candles” you find your candle again, even after it has burned out.
A place on a virtual cemetery
On our virtual cemeteries the memorial gets a place where visitors find it, like a grave one can visit.
- Choose a cemetery and tap a free spot on the map. On the free cemeteries every memorial has one place at a time; “Move here” takes it to another one. It can stand on the main cemetery in addition.
- A place runs for 7, 14 or 30 days and can be extended; on free cemeteries at no cost.
- Under “My Account › Placements” you see every place and how long it still runs, and extend it there.
- In the overview of the cemeteries every spot is a dot: an empty circle is free, a dark dot is a memorial, and a spot where a candle is burning right now glows gold.
Show on the homepage
A highlighted memorial is seen by every visitor on the homepage under “In memory”.
- Choose the memorial and the duration under “My Account › On the homepage”.
- Beforehand you see how it will look there, later how many visits and candles came since the start.
- Two days before the end we remind you, so you can extend it.
The QR code for mourning card, notice and grave
With a QR code, family, friends and acquaintances find the memorial with one look at their phone, free for every memorial.
- Print the code on mourning and thank-you cards, in the death notice, or have it put on the gravestone.
- You get it as a picture for the printer and as an SVG file for the stonemason, with matching texts to copy.
- The address behind the code stays the same for good, and you see how many visitors came by it.
Share, invite and subscribe
Remembrance lives on when others share it.
- With “Invite” you share the memorial by WhatsApp, Facebook, as a link or by email with a personal message.
- With “Subscribe” you stay up to date on a memorial: new candles, condolences and changes, and we remind you of the birthday and the day of death.
- Protected memorials are shared only by a neutral address; their name appears nowhere.
Manage together
Grief is shared, and so is caring for a memorial.
- Invite relatives by email as co-managers. They help design the page and publish changes. Anyone without an account creates just an account through the link in the invitation, without a memorial of their own, and lands in the editor right after the first login. In My Account, co-managed memorials are listed first, each with the name of the person who created it. Co-managers can also open and download the QR code for mourning cards, notices and the grave there.
- Settings, the password and deleting the page stay with you.
- Inviting co-managers is part of the premium membership.
Privacy and protection
You decide who sees what.
- With a password only people who know it see a memorial; its name then appears in no list and no search (premium). Then pass on the link the editor and the settings show, or the QR code: to everyone else the address with the name looks as if the page did not exist.
- In the settings you decide whether guests may leave candles and condolences, whether condolences need your approval and whether search engines find the page.
- You and your visitors can report inappropriate content; we check every report. A spam filter holds back candles and condolences of guests with links to other sites or typical advertising words until we have checked them. It also checks published memorials; they stay visible meanwhile.
Notifications
You learn what happens on your memorials, without a flood of emails.
- One single summary holds everything: new candles, condolences and gifts on your memorials, news on subscribed pages, birthdays and days of death of these memorials and your burned-out candles.
- You choose daily, weekly, every two weeks or never, under “My Account › Settings”.
- The email only comes when there is something new. With “Unsubscribe from these emails” at the bottom of every summary and every email about unread messages you switch it off in one click, even without logging in. If an email to you could not be delivered or was reported as spam, we pause the notifications; with “Turn notifications back on” in the settings you confirm your address and receive them again.
Messages and other members
On Soulium you are not alone with your grief.
- Write other members a personal message, from their profile or with “Find a member” under “Messages”.
- See who is online right now and answer messages with a sign. One grey tick at your message means “sent”, two coloured ticks mean “read”. A message may be up to 1,000 characters long.
- Whoever does not want to be written to or found sets that in the settings; blocking is possible at any time.
My Account
Everything in one place.
- “My contributions” shows every candle, condolence and gift you left, to look at, change or delete.
- Under “Credits & purchases” you buy credits for gifts, cemetery places and the homepage and see every booking. The payment history lists everything you paid for with money; a click on a purchase or its invoice number opens the receipt to view and print. With every purchase paid with money you confirm with a tick that Soulium begins the service at once: for gifts and credits your right of withdrawal thereby ends; for the premium membership, placements and highlighting only once the service has been provided in full, and until then a withdrawal costs only the share of the time provided. The confirmation e-mail with the receipt repeats this consent.
- You download your data at any time. You delete your account yourself and decide for each of your memorials what happens to it. Beforehand you see your remaining credits, which are forfeited with the deletion, and what happens to a running premium membership: the deletion counts as a cancellation, without a refund in the first year; after that we refund the full months still paid after the month's notice. We confirm the cancellation and the refund by e-mail. A membership bought once for a fixed term ends with the deletion without a refund. If the terms and conditions change, we announce it by e-mail at least six weeks ahead and then ask you once for your consent; until then your previous terms and conditions apply.
Any questions?
Write to us through the contact form, we are glad to help.