Is Paperless Post Free? Coins and Limits Explained
Partly. As of October 2026, Paperless Post lets you send your first 50 Flyer invites free, by email or by text, and it has free Card designs too. Past 50 guests you pay per invite, and most of the stationery-style Card invitations the site is known for cost Coins for every guest from the first one.
So the answer to "is Paperless Post free" depends on which of its two products you pick and how many people you're inviting. The figures below are from Paperless Post's pricing, Flyer, online invitations and promo codes pages, which I read this week.
Is Paperless Post free? What the free version includes
Paperless Post sells two kinds of invitation, and they're priced differently.
Flyer is the casual one. Paperless Post pitches Flyers as invites you can text, and the examples on its Flyer page are a 30th birthday at a bar and a house party. Its site says your first 50 Flyer invites are always free to send, whether they go by text message or email. After 50, each additional invite costs 1 Coin. You can also send a shareable link to an unlimited number of guests. If you want to see who opened the invite, Paperless Post says to send it directly through the site instead of by link.
Card is the formal one: the stationery-inspired designs, with envelopes and liners. Some Card designs are free. The pricing page has a Free tier at $0.00 per guest and says the first 50 invitations sent by email or phone number through the site can go out without a purchase. But the FAQ on the online invitations page says most of the stationery-inspired Card invitations require Coins to send.
Two more facts in Paperless Post's favor. It carries no advertising; the site's wording is "No distracting ads, ever." And RSVP tracking, broadcasts and private messages to guests are listed as always included.
For a 30-person housewarming on a plain Flyer, that adds up to a free invitation with no ads on it.
How Paperless Post Coins work
Coins are Paperless Post's virtual credits. You buy them on the site and can only spend them there.
Every design shows a number of Coins per recipient. You multiply that by your guest count. Paperless Post's own example is a 5-Coin design sent to 40 guests, which needs 200 Coins.
The Card tiers, per recipient:
| Tier | Coins per guest in the pricing calculator | Price per guest on the pricing page |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 | $0.00 |
| Basic | 2 | $0.50 |
| Premium | 5 | $1.05 |
| All Access | 8 | $1.44 |
The pricing page marks Premium as the most popular tier, and its calculator opens on a total of $52.50, which is 50 guests at $1.05. Select Basic or All Access in the calculator and it shows that tier's Coin count, which is where the 2 and the 8 come from.
Divide those prices by the Coin counts and a Coin works out to between 18 and 25 cents. At the Premium rate of $1.05 for 5 Coins it's 21 cents, and that's the figure I use below wherever a Coin count needs a dollar value.
Treat every dollar figure here as a guide. Coins are sold in packages and Paperless Post says the price per Coin varies with the size of the package. I couldn't find the package prices on a public page, which is why none are quoted here. The pricing page also says "The more guests you invite, the less you pay per guest," so a long list should come out under the $1.05 rate. You can buy exactly the number of Coins an event needs once the guest list is in, and unused Coins carry over to a later event. The promo codes page says you earn 10 free Coins when you create an account.
What moves a design up the tiers is the extras. The envelope, liner, stamp and backdrop come in at the Premium tier, along with photo gallery and video blocks and the ability to ask guests questions such as a mailing address.
So the cost rises with each feature you add and with each guest you invite. A design that was free at 45 guests with no envelope stops being free at 80 guests with one.
Lemonvite, the platform this blog belongs to, prices the same thing differently. It costs $5 per event and the price doesn't change with what you put in the design. There are no Coins and no tiers. RSVP questions, co-hosts and read receipts are all included in the $5.
What the same event costs on Lemonvite
Lemonvite's $5 covers up to 150 guests, and 150 is its limit per event. Up to 50 of them can be phone guests who get the invitation by text, and each further batch of 50 phone guests is another $5, which covers the cost of sending texts. Guests invited by email don't add anything.
Here are the three options for the same list, assuming every guest gets a text. The Flyer's dollar figures use the 21-cent Coin. Past 50 guests, the Premium Card figures are my own multiplication of the $1.05 rate, and Paperless Post says the per-guest price drops as the list grows, so read them as upper limits.
| Guests | Paperless Post Flyer, no paid features | Paperless Post Premium Card | Lemonvite |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 | $0 | $31.50 | $5 |
| 50 | $0 | $52.50 | $5 |
| 75 | 25 Coins, about $5.25 | up to $78.75 | $10 |
| 100 | 50 Coins, about $10.50 | up to $105 | $10 |
| 150 | 100 Coins, about $21 | up to $157.50 | $15 |
The free Flyer is the cheapest option in the first two rows, and a Flyer still costs less than Lemonvite at 75 guests. At 100 guests the two cost about the same. If no more than 50 of your guests get a text, Lemonvite stays at $5 for the whole list, and the Flyer costs more than that from about 75 guests up.
A paid Card is a different case. At the Premium rate, Lemonvite's flat price is lower in every row of the table, including the 30-guest one.
Lemonvite has no free tier for sending, but designing is free: a new account gets five design generations, and you only pay when you publish. You can make the invitation first and decide afterward.
The two also produce different things. Paperless Post gives you a catalog of designed templates. Lemonvite has no catalog. You describe the event and the design engine makes an invitation for it, or you upload your own artwork. If the specific look of a Paperless Post card with its envelope is what you want, that's a real reason to pay for Coins. I compared the two in more detail in Paperless Post vs Lemonvite.
Paperless Pro: the subscription
For people who host a lot, Paperless Post sells an annual subscription called Paperless Pro. The plan shown on its site is $250 a year for 250 guests, with no Coins involved, and the page says that saves 25% against paying per event. Larger guest allowances cost more; the pricing FAQ puts the step from 250 to 500 guests at $150.
Read the guest counting before you buy. A guest counts once per event, so the same person invited to three events uses three of your 250. The subscription is non-refundable, though you can cancel it. When the term ends the account goes back to paying with Coins.
Nonprofits, schools and charities included, can get 25% off whether they pay per event or subscribe.
Lemonvite has no subscription. You pay for an event when you publish it, and credits you've bought don't expire.
How to send a Paperless Post invitation for free
If free is the goal, this is the path:
- Choose a Flyer, or a Card design marked free.
- Keep the list to 50 people sent by email or text. Paperless Post says a Flyer's shareable link can go to unlimited guests, so use it for anyone beyond that. Check that the Coins figure still reads zero before you share it. You won't see who opened a link.
- Watch the Coins-per-invite figure in the editor as you customize. If it moves off zero, a paid element has been added. Paperless Post says you can remove optional paid elements to bring the cost back down.
- Skip the envelope, the liner and the backdrop.
When the free version is enough
For a casual party of 50 or fewer, it is. The free Flyer has no ads and tracks RSVPs, and I'd use it without hesitation. I'd keep using a Flyer up to about 75 guests, where the extra invites come to around $5.
For a formal event, usually not, because most of the Card designs cost Coins. If you'd pay for a Card, at any list size up to 150, I'd send the invitation with Lemonvite instead for $5 to $15. I'd do the same for a casual list of 100 or more.
Among the other big names, Evite is free up to 750 guests but puts ads in front of them, and Punchbowl has no free plan for new events. I cover more options in my list of the best Paperless Post alternatives.
Before you buy Coins for a Card, spend two minutes describing the same event at Lemonvite. The design is free to generate. If you like it better than the card you were about to pay per guest for, you'll have saved most of the bill.