A kist is a chest with a lock on it.
A sailor owned one. It went aboard with him and it held everything he had — his clothes, his tools, his letters — with a small tray under the lid, the till, for whatever was worth something. It was his bank, his bureau, and most nights his chair.
Ours is half-built: the lid’s on, the hinges aren’t. Mind the sawdust.
One box, and he could name what was in it
You can’t. Almost nobody can — not in the way it actually gets asked. By an adjuster with a form. By an executor with a house to settle. By you at eleven at night, working out what could be sold by Friday.
The kist is the catalog you wish you had started years ago. Point a camera at a thing. It works out what the thing is, what it is worth, and it writes down where that number came from, so the number can be argued with later.
That last part is the whole job. A drawer of receipts is not a catalog, and neither is a folder of photographs. What makes a record worth anything on the worst day is that somebody made it on an ordinary one.
Who is filling one
- Someone who has just been burgled, and has two days to file.
- Someone whose wine, or shoes, or records, or games quietly became worth something while nobody was counting.
- Someone clearing a parent’s house, holding an object and no idea.
The lock came before the lid
A kist had a lock because the forecastle was full of other people. Ours is on a computer that is not yours, which is a forecastle with worse manners.
A list of everything you own, room by room, with what it is worth: that is precisely the document you would least like anybody else reading. So the sealing was built before the camera was. We wrote down what we can see, what we cannot, and what survives if you ask us to erase it — and we published all of it before we had a single user to reassure.
It is not a promise, because a promise is not a mechanism. Read it and hold us to it.
What it will cost
Writing down what you own is free, and it stays free. The record is the protection, and nobody should have to pay to make one.
What you pay for is what matters after a loss or at renewal: an export an adjuster will accept, valuations that keep up with the market, and a safe way to hand your kist to an adjuster or an executor. You pay us, so we never sell your data.
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Annual
$39 a year
Everything above. Pre-order and your first year’s price is locked. Or $3.99 a month, if you would rather.
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Founding Member
$299, once
The kist for life, and a founding badge. One thousand places.
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Visionary
$1,500, once
The kist for life, and calls with the founder about where it goes next. One hundred places.
Nothing is charged before 1 January 2027, and a pre-order here takes no card, no name and no address — it tells us you would pay. When paid plans open, the paid features reach you by 30 June 2027, or every payment is refunded in full. Lifetime plans are a product and a thank-you, never an investment.
Where we are up to
Our last dress rehearsal found nineteen things. We started with the scary one.
The kist is invite-only while we are in alpha. There is no waiting list, because a waiting list is a form and a form collects something. Write to us instead, and we will write back.