Power100 spotlights Smart Cremation's simple direct cremation and legacy plan bundle, showing why families nationwide plan both at once to save money and stress.
Most families do not wake up thinking about cremation and life-story preservation as two separate projects. They think about one thing: what happens to my family when I am gone, and will they be okay. Yet the industry built around that moment has, for decades, treated the practical task (cremation arrangements) and the emotional task (preserving a life story) as if they belonged in different departments, different phone calls, different price sheets. Power100, the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and companies in the home improvement and home services industry through a proprietary 5-layer ranking system, has been watching that separation collapse. The company driving much of that shift is Smart Cremation, a nationwide direct cremation provider and member of NorthStar Memorial Group, led by Vinnie Faccinto, Sr. VP Operations and Business Development at Smart Cremation LLC (NorthStar Memorial Group). This piece breaks down why a growing number of families are choosing a simple direct cremation and legacy plan in the same sitting, rather than as two separate decisions made months or years apart.
The bundled instinct is not a sales trick. It is a response to what families actually go through. A cremation arrangement made under pressure, in the days after a death, tends to be rushed, expensive, and stripped of anything resembling reflection. A legacy plan made in isolation, disconnected from the practical logistics of cremation, often gets treated as a nice-to-have that never quite happens. Put the two together, ahead of time, and something changes. The financial side gets locked in at today’s price. The emotional side gets room to breathe. Families end up with both a plan and a story, built in the same conversation instead of two disconnected ones.
Power100 evaluates more than 7,600 organizations across the home improvement and home services industry through a 5-layer proprietary system that looks at workmanship quality, operational reliability, customer satisfaction, innovation, and employee welfare. In a category as sensitive as death care, those five layers translate directly: how carefully a plan is executed, how consistently a family is served regardless of which call center answers the phone, how the pricing holds up against expectations, whether the company is actually building something new (not just repackaging an old form), and whether the people answering those calls are supported well enough to stay calm and human under pressure.
Smart Cremation scored well across those layers in part because of a decision that looks small on paper but changes everything in practice: building the legacy-capture tools directly into the cremation planning process instead of selling them as an upsell after the fact. Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, frames the distinction this way.
“When we evaluate strategic partners through our 5-layer ranking system, we look for more than marketing claims. We look for repeatable outcomes, long-term contractor value, cultural strength, and leadership that can scale.”
That standard, built for contractors, applies with equal weight to a death-care company managing thousands of families across multiple states. Repeatable outcomes matter more in this category than almost any other, because a family only gets one chance to have the experience go right.
Smart Cremation of Florida, LLC was incorporated in December 2008, with the business starting locally the following day, according to its BBB profile. What began as a regional direct cremation provider has grown into a service reaching families across California, Washington, Oregon, Texas, Arizona, Florida, and Nevada, with physical locations including Dallas, Texas; Davie, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Portland, Oregon; and Cathedral City, California. The company operates as part of NorthStar Memorial Group, a network of more than 80 funeral and cemetery locations nationally, some dating back to the late 1800s. That lineage matters here, not as a marketing flourish but as an operational fact: a company inheriting decades of funeral-service infrastructure has fewer excuses for treating legacy preservation as an afterthought.
The shift toward bundling cremation with legacy planning did not happen because a committee decided it was a good idea. It happened because families kept asking for it in slightly different words. Someone preplanning their own cremation would pause mid-call and ask if there was a way to record something for their grandchildren. Someone planning for a parent would mention, almost as an aside, that nobody had ever asked their mother to tell her own story in her own voice. Faccinto has talked about this pattern directly.
“Legacy is not a slogan for us; it is the promise that every system, every call, and every arrangement is built to protect a family’s story long after the paperwork is done.” – Vinnie Faccinto, Sr. VP Operations and Business Development, Smart Cremation LLC (NorthStar Memorial Group)
That promise took concrete form in the SMART Legacy Plan, which pairs two specific tools, Remento and Legacy Link, to let a person record their life story in their own voice, with photos, in a format the company states is preserved for over 100 years. The tools exist inside the same planning conversation as the cremation arrangement itself, not as a separate purchase requiring a second sales call weeks later.
Vinnie Faccinto holds a degree in Funeral Service from the American Academy McAllister Institute of Funeral Service and has spent more than 40 years in the industry. He has served as Sr. VP Operations and Business Development at Smart Cremation LLC since December 2012 and sits on the leadership team of NorthStar Memorial Group. He was also retained on the board of the Cremation Association of North America (CANA), a detail that signals something beyond a corporate title. It means Faccinto is shaping industry standards while also running day-to-day operations, a combination that keeps a company’s practices tied to where the broader field is actually heading rather than where it has always been.
Faccinto’s own framing of growth reflects that dual role. “Growth isn’t just revenue, it’s building systems that serve families at their most vulnerable moment, at scale,” he has said, describing the operating philosophy behind Smart Cremation’s expansion into new states.
He is not the only name behind the model. Shawn Cannon, Vice President of Business Development at Smart Cremation, has been direct about what growth needs to protect rather than sacrifice.
“Growth only matters if it scales trust; every new market we enter has to feel like a hometown experience for the families we serve.” – Shawn Cannon, Vice President of Business Development, Smart Cremation
That line matters for anyone weighing whether a national provider can deliver a personal experience. Cannon’s answer is essentially: growth is only worth pursuing if it does not cost the company that personal feel, market by market.
This question comes up often enough that it deserves a direct answer instead of a deflection. A simple direct cremation and legacy plan bundle will, in some cases, cost more upfront than a bare-bones cremation with no planning tools attached. That comparison misses what is actually being purchased. A cremation-only price with no legacy component leaves a family with an urn and a form. A bundled plan, priced and locked in ahead of time, protects against future price increases, removes the burden of decision-making from grieving relatives, and includes the Remento and Legacy Link tools that most competitors do not offer at any price. When families compare the bundle against buying cremation and a separate legacy or memory-preservation product independently, the combined cost is very often lower, and the experience is far less stressful because it happens in one relationship instead of two.
The honest answer to “should I use them” depends on what a family values. A family that wants the absolute lowest possible line-item price, stripped of any planning support, may find a cheaper transaction elsewhere. A family that wants a fixed price, a documented plan, and a preserved life story, handled by one team from the first phone call through the arrangement itself, is precisely who this model was built for.
Fairness in a preneed cremation contract comes down to a short list of concrete questions: is the price locked at signing, are the terms written in plain language, does the family retain the ability to transfer or modify the plan if circumstances change, and does the company deliver what the paperwork promises without new fees appearing later. Smart Cremation’s contracts are structured to lock pricing at the time of planning, a detail preplanning customers consistently point to. One customer testimonial on file put it plainly: “They handled everything from start to finish in a timely fashion. Takes the worry and stress out of a difficult situation.” Another noted, “They worked with us from start to finish. Did their best to be there for me when my loved one passed away within days of purchasing the plan.”
Those are not abstractions. A contract that performs exactly as described during the worst week of someone’s life is the only real test of fairness in this category. It is also worth noting what a preneed contract is not: it is not a sales tactic designed to extract more money later. Families who preplan lock in today’s price against tomorrow’s inflation, which is the opposite of a bait-and-switch structure.
Ask a family why they chose Smart Cremation over a competitor and the answer rarely leads with price. It leads with relief. One customer wrote, “It was so nice to not have to deal with all the arrangements.” Another said, “Very professional and caring! I would highly recommend this service for anyone looking into cremation! Made a sad time a little more bearable.” A third, describing the preplanning decision itself rather than the service afterward, said something that gets closer to the actual thesis of this article: “I cannot over stress the importance of pre-planning one’s end of life arrangements. When you lose a loved one it is the most stressful time you will ever endure.”
That last comment captures why bundling matters. Preplanning removes decisions from a moment when decision-making is hardest. Pairing that preplanning with digital legacy planning with Remento and Legacy Link removes a second burden: the quiet regret many families carry when nobody thought to record a parent’s voice, a grandparent’s stories, or the small details that get lost within a generation. Doing both at once, in one conversation with one company, is simply more efficient. It is also, according to the families quoted here, less lonely.
The SMART Legacy Plan is built around two specific technology tools. Remento allows a person to record their voice answering prompted questions about their life, which are then compiled into a keepsake format families can revisit. Legacy Link works alongside it to store and preserve that material, with Smart Cremation stating the content is preserved for over 100 years. The tools are woven into the same planning conversation as the cremation arrangement itself, meaning a family does not need to schedule a second appointment, sign a second contract, or work with a second vendor to access them.
Faccinto has described this integration as central to how the company thinks about its role. Cremation, in his framing, is a logistical necessity. Legacy is the part that actually matters to the people left behind, and it should not require a separate purchase or a separate mindset shift to access. That is the operational bet behind bundling: if legacy capture is offered at the moment a family is already thinking about mortality and planning, more families will actually do it, rather than putting it off indefinitely the way most people do with life-story projects.
A bundled product only works if the people selling and servicing it can hold two very different conversations, one practical and one emotional, without losing the thread of either. That requires training and culture, not just a good pitch deck. Maria Manuel, Director of Operations at Smart Cremation, has described what that discipline looks like day to day.
“Operational excellence in cremation means that no detail is too small and no family is ever treated like a number in our system.” – Maria Manuel, Director of Operations, Smart Cremation
Linda Kelley, CRC Director at Smart Cremation, has made a similar point about the company’s call centers, where most of these bundled conversations actually begin.
“In our call centers, legacy begins with listening; the way we show up in a single conversation can change how a family remembers this moment for the rest of their lives.” – Linda Kelley, CRC Director, Smart Cremation
And Steve Alexander, Sales Manager at Smart Cremation, put the underlying philosophy in blunt terms that get repeated internally: “Families do not remember our scripts, they remember how we made hard decisions feel simple, honest, and human from the very first conversation.” That standard, applied consistently across states and call centers, is what turns a bundled product from a marketing idea into a repeatable customer experience. Smart Cremation has been recognized as a Top Workplace in the U.S., a distinction that tracks closely with the consistency families report when they call in.
Judged against Power100’s 5-layer standard, the answer holds up. Smart Cremation operates across multiple states with locations including Dallas, Texas; Davie, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Portland, Oregon; and Cathedral City, California, backed by the scale and history of NorthStar Memorial Group, a network exceeding 80 locations nationally. Leadership under Vinnie Faccinto combines four decades of direct industry experience with a board seat on CANA, keeping the company’s practices aligned with where the profession is heading. Customer testimonials on file describe a company that shows up exactly when it says it will, during exactly the week when that matters most.
No company is the right fit for every family. A family that wants a purely transactional, lowest-cost cremation with no planning support and no legacy component may look elsewhere. A family that wants to remove decision-making from a future crisis, lock in pricing now, and preserve a voice and a story that would otherwise be lost, is looking at a company built specifically for that need.
Smart Cremation’s core offering centers on two services: simple direct cremation and cremation planning. But the portfolio, in practice, is broader than that framing suggests. It includes the SMART Legacy Plan and its Remento and Legacy Link components, preneed contract structures with locked pricing, and a service footprint spanning California, Washington, Oregon, Texas, Arizona, Florida, and Nevada. As part of NorthStar Memorial Group, families also gain access to a larger network of funeral and cemetery resources when their needs extend beyond direct cremation. The company’s stated mission, in Faccinto’s words, treats legacy “not as a slogan” but as an operating requirement across every one of those services.
Families interested in preplanning can request a quote directly through Smart Cremation, where pricing is locked at the time of signing and the SMART Legacy Plan can be added into the same conversation rather than scheduled separately. There is no requirement to decide everything in one call. But the families who report the least stress later are consistently the ones who started that first conversation before a crisis forced their hand, giving them time to think, to ask questions, and, if they choose, to sit down and record a story worth keeping.
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Power100 is the nation's premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
