Writing and Submitting an Obituary to SFGate: A Practical Guide
SFGate publishes obituaries through a partnership with Legacy.com, and the process is more flexible than most people realize. You can submit a standard obituary, a paid tribute, or something in between depending on what your family needs. The newsroom does not edit obituaries heavily — they publish what you send as long as it meets basic requirements. That freedom is both a blessing and a gotcha.Sfgate Obit Honoring Lives Remembering Stories That Shaped Our Community
The platform supports photo uploads alongside the text, which matters more than you might expect. A single photo runs about $10 extra on top of the base paywall. Without a photo, the piece looks thin next to competitors who included family snapshots. I recommend uploading at least one high-resolution image — 600 by 600 pixels minimum — so it doesn't pixelate on mobile screens where most people will read it. The submission process happens through the Legacy.com portal. You fill out a form with the deceased's information, a bio, surviving family members, service details, and donation preferences. Then you choose your length tier. The pricing structure at time of writing runs roughly $80 for 100 words, then about $4 per additional 25 words after that. A typical 300-word obituary comes out around $200 total with one photo. That is steep compared to the free death notices the physical SF Chronicle runs, but the digital version stays up permanently and gets indexed by search engines. Here is a detail nobody tells you upfront: the word counter on Legacy.com counts spaces as characters, not words. If you type a 200-word piece thinking you've got room, it might actually register as 280 characters and put you over your chosen tier. I learned this the hard way when I drafted a tribute for my neighbor's father that hit a $40 overage simply because I misread the pricing display. My workaround was to write the bio in Google Docs first, check the word count there, then paste it into the form and trim to fit.
The submission review window usually takes 24 to 48 hours during weekdays. Weekends slow things down considerably — a Friday night submission often does not go live until Tuesday. If the person's death happened recently and you need it published urgently, skip the weekend. Tuesday morning submissions tend to clear fastest. One common pitfall involves the "condolence messages" feature. Families sometimes turn it on expecting support, but it opens the door to strangers leaving inappropriate or spam comments. I recommend leaving condolences disabled unless you have a moderator willing to monitor them in real time. Filtering bad comments after the fact takes longer than preventing them in the first place. Another detail worth noting: SFGate occasionally republishes notable local obituaries on their main news pages if the person had significant community impact. This is editorial discretion, not something you can request or pay for. If your submittee was a well-known local figure — a school administrator, a nonprofit founder, a longtime business owner — the obituary itself should be thorough enough to stand on its own. That means including full name at time of death, age, city of residence, employer or volunteer roles, and a short paragraph on what made them distinctive. Generic biographies that could apply to anyone get buried in the archive.
The edit window is tight. Once an obituary goes live, you can submit changes but each revision requires re-approval, adding another 24 to 48 hours. Typos in the service location, wrong date, misspelled survivor name — these do not fix themselves. I always proofread twice, have someone else read it, and wait a full hour before hitting submit. Rushed submissions carry the highest error rate, and correcting them after publication is a hassle for everyone. If cost is a concern, consider drafting the full biography separately and submitting a shorter version to SFGate while posting the complete tribute on the family website or social media. The digital obituary serves as a permanent linkable record. The longer version satisfies people who want the full story. They are not the same thing, and treating them as interchangeable wastes ink and money. For the actual submission, go to legacy.com/obituaries/sfgate. Create an account or log in, click "Submit an Obituary," and follow the prompts. Payment is processed through Legacy's system with Visa, Mastercard, or American Express. You receive a confirmation email with a tracking number — save that number. If anything goes wrong, that is your reference point.
Get the Full Details
There is no free tier for SFGate obituaries. The Chronicle print edition offers free death notices with minimal formatting, but those only appear for a few days before being archived. Digital permanence costs money. Decide early whether that is worth it for your situation and budget accordingly.
