ObituaryTemplate.com

How Long Should an Obituary Be?

There is no required length, and no editor will refuse one for being short. Of the 7 complete obituaries published on this site, the median is 175 words and the range is 58 to 216 — roughly 12 to 44 lines of newspaper column at 30 characters per line. Because papers bill by the line, length is mostly a budget decision; funeral home memorial pages are usually free and effectively unlimited, so many families publish a short version in print and the full one online.

What we measured, and why it is worth measuring

Almost every guide to obituary length quotes a range without saying where it came from. So rather than repeat one, we counted our own. The 7 complete example obituaries published on this site’s examples page were written to be realistic published pieces — a retired teacher, a veteran and machinist, a restaurant owner, a young man who died unexpectedly — and their lengths are what a family would plausibly submit.

Measured length of the 7 complete obituaries published on obituary-template.com
WordsEst. newspaper lines
Shortest5812
Median17535
Longest21644

Line estimates assume 30 characters per line, the middle of the 28–34 character column widths papers typically set obituaries in. Your paper’s column may differ; use the estimate to ask, not to budget.

Length by tone: three different documents

“How long” has three different answers depending on which kind of obituary you are writing, and the gap between them is larger than most families expect. The fill-in-the-blank templates on this site come in three tones, and their median lengths are:

The short newspaper form is not a truncated obituary; it is a different document, built out of the facts a paid notice must carry and nothing else. If a paper has quoted you a rate that made you wince, that median is the shape of the notice the rate was designed for. The short obituary template page covers that form on its own.

How to decide your own length

  1. Write the long version first. It is far easier to cut than to pad, and you will want the full version for the funeral home page and for the family regardless.
  2. Check the line count before you call the paper. The writer below reports the word count and an estimated line count for whatever it composes, so you can phone the classifieds desk with a number instead of a guess.
  3. Cut in this order. Adjectives first, then the second and third personal anecdotes, then extended family names, then the workplace details. Never cut the service time, the location, or the survivor list — those are the lines people are actually reading for.
  4. Publish two versions. The condensed one in print with a pointer to the funeral home page, the full one online. This is now the most common arrangement and no one will think less of it.

What length does not tell you

A short obituary is not a lesser one. The briefest example on this site is 58 words, and it is a complete and dignified notice of a life. Families choose short for cost, for privacy, because the person who died asked for no fuss, or because writing more than a paragraph in that particular week was not possible. All of those are good reasons, and none of them require an explanation to anyone.

Write it and see the count

The guided writer below is pre-filled with fictional sample details — replace them with your own. Choose a tone, and it composes the obituary in your browser and reports the word count and estimated newspaper lines underneath. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is required.

Write an obituary and count the lines

Answer what you can and skip what you can’t — every field is optional. Composed entirely in your browser; nothing you type is uploaded.

Common questions

How long should an obituary be?
There is no required length, and no editor will reject one for being short. Of the 7 complete obituaries published on this site, the median is 175 words and the range is 58 to 216 — a spread that covers everything from a brief paid death notice to a full memorial piece. Newspapers charge by the line, so length is a budget decision more than a writing one; funeral home web pages are usually free and unlimited.
How many words is a typical newspaper obituary?
Short newspaper obituaries are much shorter than people expect. The condensed newspaper templates on this site run to a median of 39 words — one dense paragraph of name, age, town, immediate family, and service details. The longer traditional versions run to a median of 148 words. If your paper quotes you a price per line, the short form is what that price is built around.
How much does an obituary cost?
It depends entirely on the publication, and rates vary by an order of magnitude between a small-town weekly and a metropolitan daily. Most papers price by the line or the column inch, sometimes with extra charges for a photograph. Because the rate is local, the useful thing to know is not an average price but your own line count — call the paper with that number and they can quote you exactly. Funeral home memorial pages are normally free.
Can an obituary be too long?
For a newspaper, yes, in the sense that every extra line is billed and some papers cap the length of a paid notice. For an online memorial page there is effectively no limit, but readers scan rather than read: the details people look for are the name, the family, and the service time, so burying those in paragraph six works against you. A good compromise is a short version for print and a long one online.
Is a short obituary disrespectful?
No. A brief, plainly written obituary is entirely dignified and always has been — the shortest example published on this site is 58 words. Length is not a measure of love, and families choose short notices for reasons ranging from cost to privacy to the wishes of the person who died.