About InkStory
Updated April 21, 2026
A tattoo is an edited thing. You start with something that matters, simplify it to a shape, carry it on your body for the rest of your life. InkStory is an app that adds one more layer — the tattoo can also keep the original sound, and play it back when you look at the ink.
How it started
I was sitting with my wife one evening and told her I wanted to get a tattoo. I'm a nerd — I co-run javascript.info and spend a lot of time around sound and video editing — so I wanted something nerdy but meaningful, and I didn't know what.
She suggested a soundwave. The idea stuck, but I kept thinking: why stop at the shape? What if the tattoo could actually play the sound back?
I built the app to find out.
My first tattoo is the voice of my daughter at three years old, telling me she loves me. When I scan it, I hear her exactly as she sounded then — a tiny voice I won't hear any other way once she's older. That moment, the one everyone tells you to remember because you'll forget, is no longer something I have to remember. It's on my arm, and I can play it whenever I want.
I built InkStory so other people could do the same thing with whatever moment they'd most want to keep.
What it does
Pick a sound — a voice memo, a song, a recording. Something that matters to you. Drop it into the designer and InkStory generates three tattoo-ready shapes from the audio's waveform — rough suggestions you can take to an artist.
Or skip that step entirely. You can design the tattoo any other way, or already have one, and the rest still works.
When the ink is done, open the app, take a photo of it, attach the audio you want linked. Point your camera at the tattoo later; the sound plays. That's the whole thing.
If you need an artist, there's a directory of 1,600+ tattoo studios across 57+ countries. Browse by style, by country, by city. Free, no account.
Why the audio lives on your phone
The photo and the audio live on your device, not on a server I control. Recognition happens on the phone, so playing your audio doesn’t depend on me hosting it. Links don’t sync between phones, and I haven’t verified that a device restore brings them across, so keep your original audio files.
What it costs
Free to install, free to try: 15 scans and one tattoo. Unlimited scans are a one-time $6.99 in-app purchase. It follows your InkStory account, and Restore purchases brings it back on a new phone.
A tattoo is with you for the rest of your life. Charging a subscription for something that permanent feels unfair — I don't want to keep billing you for a tattoo you already got. If you like InkStory and want to use it, one-time is enough.
— Sergey Zelenov
Common questions
- Does my tattoo need to look a specific way?
- No. Image recognition works on any visually-distinct tattoo — soundwaves, portraits, lettering, abstract shapes. What matters is that the camera can recognize the image in normal lighting.
- What happens when I get a new phone?
- Your tattoo links stay on the phone that made them; InkStory doesn't sync them. A device restore from your phone backup may bring them across, but I haven't verified that, so keep your original audio files to re-link if needed. Premium follows your InkStory account, and Restore purchases brings it back on the new phone.
- Why not offer cloud-sync as an option?
- Once you do, the product depends on a server I have to keep running forever. Keeping the audio on your phone means playing it doesn't depend on me hosting it.
- Can someone else scan my tattoo and hear the audio?
- No. The link between tattoo and audio lives in your account's storage, not in the ink. Someone else's phone sees a tattoo; only your devices play the audio.
- Is InkStory venture-funded?
- No. Bootstrapped, solo-built. Your audio is stored on your phone, not on InkStory's servers.
A tattoo is permanent in a way almost nothing else is. Whatever you attach to it — meaning, memory, a voice saying I love you — gets to stay attached for as long as the ink does.
