Love Envelope and Paperless Post, compared.
Both send something a guest opens on a phone. One charges for the design and then again for every person you send it to. The other charges once and never counts.
Paperless Post is the best known name in online invitations and has been for years. It is a catalogue of designed cards, several thousand of them, delivered into a guest inbox with an animated envelope and a reply collected on the card itself. For a dinner, a birthday or a small gathering it is a genuinely lovely thing to receive.
It is priced per recipient, in coins. Their own pricing page gives the per guest figures: free at the bottom, $0.50 a guest on Basic, $1.05 on Premium and $1.44 on All Access, and the first 50 invitations sent through their site cost nothing at all. So the two decisions are joined: the design you want and the number of people you want it to reach both push the same number up.
Love Envelope is priced the other way round. One payment, once, and the invitation lives at a link. Any number of people can open that link, share it, come back to it a month later and reply on it, and none of that changes what you paid. The list is simply not a thing the price knows about.
Side by side.
The parts that decide which of the two you should be using, rather than every feature either of us has.
What you pay
Love Envelope$100 once, and that is the whole cost of the invitation.
Paperless PostCoins, bought in packs, then spent on each recipient of a designed card.
Cost per guest
Love EnvelopeNothing. Ten people or four hundred, the link is the same link.
Paperless Post$0.50 on Basic, $1.05 on Premium, $1.44 on All Access, so a hundred guests is between $50 and $144.
How guests receive it
Love EnvelopeOne link, sent however you already talk to people. A message, a group, a printed card with a code on it.
Paperless PostDelivered by their system to email addresses you supply, with a text option as well.
Replies
Love EnvelopeOn the invitation itself, with the head count, everybody by name and dietary notes collected for you.
Paperless PostCollected on the card, with a guest list to track who has answered.
Designs
Love EnvelopeSix compositions, ten palettes, six typefaces and four papers, mixed however you like.
Paperless PostA catalogue several thousand strong, including licensed work by known studios.
Reminders and resends
Love EnvelopeFree. It is the same link, so sending it again costs nothing.
Paperless PostA resend to a recipient is another send, and is priced as one.
What free gets you
Love EnvelopeEverything, until you decide to keep it. Build it free, publish it free for 24 hours, and pay only if you want the link to stay.
Paperless PostThe first 50 invitations sent through their site, plus the free designs. After that the coins begin.
Subscription
Love EnvelopeNone. There is nothing to cancel and nothing that lapses.
Paperless PostOptional. Their annual plan is $250 a year, covering 250 guests a year.
Whose name is on it
Love EnvelopeYours only. There is no branding of ours anywhere a guest can see.
Paperless PostTheir branding is on the message a guest receives, unless you are on a business plan.
Their public pricing was last read on August 22, 2026. Prices move, and theirs is the page that decides what you pay them, so check it before you decide anything.
What Paperless Post does better.
The catalogue. Nothing here comes close to the range of it, and a good deal of it is work by studios whose stationery people already recognise, which matters if you have a specific look in your head and want to shop for it rather than build it. The envelope, the liner and the stamp are all yours to choose, and the delivery into an inbox is handled end to end: you supply addresses and they do the sending, the tracking and the chasing. If email is genuinely how your guests communicate, that is a real convenience and not a small one.
Where the difference actually shows.
Four moments in planning a wedding where the two models stop being a detail and start being the thing you notice.
The list that grows
Nobody finishes a guest list on the first attempt. Plus ones appear, a cousin is remembered, a work table is added, and every one of those is another recipient to pay for. With a link, adding fourteen people is forwarding a message.
Where your guests actually are
A great many people under forty do not read personal email, and a great many over seventy do not either. A link goes into a family group, a message thread or a text, which is where the invitation is going to be discussed anyway. An emailed card has to survive a promotions folder first.
Coins are not money
A currency between you and the price is not an accident of design. It makes the cost of one more guest hard to feel, which is exactly when a budget stops being watched. One number, paid once, is a duller product and a much easier decision.
What you are left holding
A card is delivered and then it is in an inbox. An invitation at a link is a place: it is still there in March when somebody needs the postcode, the order of the day and the reply form, and you can change the venue on it without sending anybody anything.
Which of the two to use.
They suit different weddings, and neither answer is the polite one.
Your list is a real wedding list rather than a dinner party, you talk to those people in messages rather than by email, and you would rather know the entire cost before you start than watch it assemble itself.
You have a particular card in mind and want to shop a large catalogue for it, your guests genuinely live in their email, and the list is small enough that paying by the recipient is the cheaper answer.
Worth reading either way.
Guides on wording, timing and replies that apply whichever of the two you end up using.
- Invitation wording when parents are hostingThe host line is the first sentence of an invitation and the one that causes the most family conversation. Every version of it, including the awkward ones.6 min read
- Anniversary party invitation wordingWording for a fortieth, a sixtieth, one thrown by the children, and a quiet one for two. Including the line that gets the older guests to reply.5 min read
- Sending your invitation in two languagesFor families who do not share one. What to translate, what to leave alone, and why one invitation works better than two.5 min read
- Adults only wording that nobody takes badlyHow to say no children without sounding cold, where to put the line, and what to do about the guest who asks anyway.5 min read
- Vow renewal invitation wordingYou are not getting married, you are saying it again on purpose. Wording for ten years, twenty five, and the ones that follow something hard.5 min read
- Reception only invitation wordingInviting somebody to the party and not the ceremony, without it reading as a second tier. The wordings that work and the ones that sting.5 min read
$100, once.
One payment for one invitation, and the link stays online permanently with the replies behind it.
Asked and answered.
The ones people ask when they are deciding between the two.
Partly, and more generously than people expect. Their own pricing page says the first 50 invitations sent through the site cost nothing, and there is a free design tier. Past those 50 recipients, the coins begin.
Between $50 and $144, going by the per guest figures on their own pricing page: $0.50 a guest on Basic, $1.05 on Premium, $1.44 on All Access. The shape is the part worth noticing. That number rises with your list. Ours does not move.
Yes, and it is common. A save the date and an invitation are two separate sends anyway, so nothing is wasted. Build the invitation here, send the new link, and the earlier card keeps saying what it always said.
Not here. A guest opens the link, reads the invitation and answers on the same page, with no sign in, no app and no download. Nothing is asked of them beyond the answer.
Tell us if any of this is wrong.
Their prices are theirs to change, and a page quoting them is only as good as the day it was read.
Spotted something out of date about Paperless Post?
If a price has moved, a feature has been added or dropped, or something here reads as unfair, write and say so. It gets checked against their own pages and corrected, and the date printed under the table moves with it. A note from the service being written about is as welcome as one from a couple.
Contact usNothing on these pages is paid for. No service here has paid to be included, written about or left out.
Other comparisons
The rest of the field, one page each.
- GreenvelopeOnline invitations for weddings, priced by the size of the guest list.
- EviteFree party invitations supported by advertising, with paid tiers to remove it.
- ZolaA whole wedding planning suite, with a free website and a registry at the centre of it.
- JoyA free wedding website, guest app and digital invitations, funded by paper and the registry.
- The KnotA wedding marketplace and planning suite, with a free website inside it.
- MintedA print shop with a designer marketplace, and a free website alongside it.
- Appy CoupleA wedding website and native guest app, charged by the year or the month.
- PunchbowlSubscription online invitations and cards, aimed at parties rather than weddings.
- CanvaA design tool. It makes a picture of an invitation and leaves the sending to you.