Digital card or real printed card — which should you send?

Both are real cards. The difference is where they arrive and how long they last. A digital card is instant and costs $1.99; a printed card is posted to their letterbox for $9.99 with printing and postage included. Here's how to pick without overthinking it.

Send a digital card when…

• The occasion is today or tomorrow — post can't make it.
• You don't have their street address, but you have their email.
• They're overseas and international post would take one to three weeks.
• The moment matters more than the object: a congratulations, a thank you, a good-luck note.
• You want it to land at an exact time — 9am on the day, in their timezone.

Send a printed card when…

• It's a milestone they'll want on the mantelpiece: a 30th, a wedding, a new baby, a retirement.
• The recipient isn't glued to email — grandparents, in particular.
• You have at least a week before the date.
• You want the physical object to be the gift, not the accompaniment to one.

What's identical either way

The cover illustration is painted for your description in both cases, and the message inside is set in a handwritten style. You see the same card preview before you pay. The only difference is the delivery: an animated envelope in their inbox, or an envelope in their letterbox.

Cost, honestly compared

A shop card plus a stamp usually comes to $8–12 once you've driven to get it, and it has to be bought days early. A printed Send Card is $9.99 all in, without the trip. A digital card is $1.99 and arrives the second you press send. Neither has a subscription attached.

Sending both is a legitimate move: email the digital card on the day so they have something to open, and post the printed one to arrive that week.