What Happened to Lantern, and What to Use Instead

Lantern was founded in 2018 to help people plan before and after a death. Wellthy acquired it in 2023 and retired the standalone service.^[1][2][3]

Need your Lantern Care Plan? Email support@wellthy.com. Wellthy's retirement notice offers help downloading former users' documents.^[3] Include the email associated with your Lantern account so support can identify it.

Read Wellthy's retirement and recovery notice. To choose another service, compare current planning platforms.

Platform sources checked September 13, 2026. Wellthy's notice doesn't state a retirement year or guarantee recovery for every account.

Liz Eddy Scully and Alyssa Ruderman Hager founded Lantern in 2018.^[1] The product was a guided checklist for the two hardest jobs in this space: handling the weeks after someone dies, and planning ahead so your own people won't be lost. Its eventual buyer described it as "the startup looking to ignite a conversation about how to die well."^[1]

It earned its recommendations. That's part of the problem now: those recommendations are still out there, pointing at a product that no longer exists.

In May 2023, Wellthy, a caregiving concierge company, announced it had acquired Lantern alongside a $25.5 million funding round.^[2] The stated plan was integration: folding Lantern's end-of-life planning materials into Wellthy's caregiving concierge, community, and planning services.^[3]

Integration is what acquirers usually say, and sometimes do. What it meant here is that Lantern stopped being a product you could sign up for.

Wellthy retired the product. The notice that now sits at lantern.co is titled "Retiring Lantern." It says Lantern "will be decommissioning on September 1" and that accounts are unavailable "starting September 2."^[3] The notice does not state a year for either September date.

On September 13, 2026, Wellthy's retirement notice still provides the account-recovery instructions.^[3]

Contact support@wellthy.com about recovering your Lantern Care Plan. Wellthy publishes this assistance route in its retirement notice.^[3] Ask what documents remain available under your account and how to download them.

Keep any copies you already have. If you need to check a signed document's requirements or whether it still reflects your wishes, ask a licensed attorney in your state to review it.

If something can't be recovered, use the planning checklist to identify what to rebuild. For immediate tasks after a death, start with what to do when someone dies. Your state guide links to official rules and forms.

Our platform comparison includes MORTL and other current services. Check the task each tool handles, its cost, how to export your information, and how someone you trust can access it.

If you also used Cake, check its separate recovery instructions. Keep your own copies of any files you recover or create.

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Sources: Wellthy's acquisition announcement and its "Retiring Lantern" notice; the public excerpt of OPEN MINDS' May 2023 bulletin on the acquisition and funding round. Acquisition sources and Wellthy's retirement notice checked September 13, 2026. See our Sources & Methodology.

This article is education. It doesn't replace legal advice. For your state's exact signing rules, start with your state guide.