The cheapest ways to send a real postcard online

The cheapest: Click2Mail, for a notice rather than a photo

At $0.64 for a US postcard and $1.25 abroad, Click2Mail’s Easy Letter Sender is the cheapest way to get a card printed and mailed, and there’s no catch in the price: you pay per card, with no balance or plan. The card is where the saving comes from. It’s 80 lb uncoated white cover stock with your image and plain typed text, which is right for a reminder or an announcement. A photo someone will keep wants a gloss front, and this isn’t that.

Postcard.bot: cheap per card, cheapest only after a large top-up

Postcard.bot is $1.99 for a US card and $2.99 abroad, pay as you go with no account needed, on 350 gsm gloss stock. The prices under a dollar come from a prepaid balance with tiers set by what you’ve put in over your lifetime as a customer: $1.49 after a first top-up, $1.29 after $20, $0.99 after $50, and the advertised $0.69 after $10,000. The balance doesn’t expire, so the money isn’t lost, but reaching the headline price is a volume decision, and the service is built for volume: CSV import, mail merge and an API.

MyPostcard and Touchnote: mid-priced, sold by template and credit

MyPostcard starts at $3.49 a card with postage included worldwide, pay per card or from an optional balance, and prints in New York and Berlin. Touchnote is $4.49 a card, and lower with credit packs or a membership ($8.79 a month for 2 credits, or $89.91 a year for 24). Touchnote credits expire after 12 months, so the saving only exists if you send cards steadily. Both are built around template libraries, so the price buys a designed card more than a photo on its own.

Cheapest of all: a card, a stamp and a mailbox

If you’re near a shop that sells postcards and a post office or mailbox, buying a card and a stamp yourself is cheaper than any service here, and you get to write it by hand. The online services exist for the other case: the photo is on your phone, the person is far away, and there’s no rack of cards between you and a mailbox.

Why $7 is a fair price for a card worth keeping

Paper Plane Post costs more per card than every service above, and the price is the whole price: $7 buys the printing and first-class postage to any of 195 countries, paid once at checkout, with no account, balance, credit pack or membership and nothing that expires. For one or two cards a year, that can come to less than a credit pack or a top-up you don’t finish.

What it buys is the card. Your photo is printed edge to edge on 4 × 6 stock of 255–325 gsm with a UV gloss front, and your note goes on the back in a handwriting-style typeface, with nothing else on either side. It takes three steps on one page in any browser, and you see both sides as they’ll print before you pay. The cheapest card is the right choice when the card is a notice. When the card is for a person, the one they put on the fridge is worth the few dollars more.

How to choose

If you want the lowest price and the card is a notice, use Click2Mail. If you send to a list, Postcard.bot gets cheap in volume. If you send designed cards every month, Touchnote or MyPostcard will cost less per card. If you’re sending one photo postcard to one person and want it to look good, use Paper Plane Post, and if there’s a shop and a mailbox nearby, buy a card and a stamp.