Paperless Post vs Greenvelope: Which Is Worth Paying For?

My cousin got engaged in the spring and asked me one question: Paperless Post vs Greenvelope, which one for the engagement party? She'd already ruled out the free ad-supported sites. She wanted something that looked like stationery and didn't mind paying for it. She just wanted to know how much.

That turned out to be the right question, because the two platforms look alike on the surface and charge in completely different ways. I pulled the current numbers from each company's own pricing page.

Greenvelope vs Paperless Post: the short answer

Paperless Post charges per guest. Greenvelope charges a flat amount for a guest-count tier. Greenvelope works out to about $1 a guest at the top of each tier. Paperless Post's rate per guest falls as the list grows. For 100 guests its pricing calculator shows $0.46 a guest for a Basic card, $0.85 for Premium and $1.20 for All Access. So Paperless Post is cheaper if you keep the card plain, at less than half Greenvelope's price. With an envelope, liner and backdrop (the Premium set) Paperless Post is still the cheaper one at this size: at 100 guests Greenvelope is $99 against $85.00, and at 85 it's $99 against $76.50. Greenvelope is cheaper than All Access in both cases. For a list of 10 or fewer, Greenvelope's trial mode sends at no charge.

On design, Paperless Post has the designer names. On planning tools for a formal event, Greenvelope gives you every feature at every tier.

Both cost real money at 100 guests, somewhere between $46 and $120. If that's more than the invitation is worth to you, Lemonvite publishes an event for $5 and I'll show where it fits further down.

Pricing: Coins per guest vs a flat tier

Paperless Post sells Coins and spends them per recipient. Its pricing page groups the options into feature sets and gives the dollar figure for each: Free, Basic at $0.50 per guest, Premium at $1.05 per guest, All Access at $1.44 per guest. The calculator on its pricing page shows a Premium card at 5 Coins each coming to $52.50, which is 50 guests at $1.05. Those rates are for a list of 50, and a longer list pays less per guest.

What moves you from one set to the next is the extras. Add a backdrop, an envelope or a liner and the card moves to the Premium set at 5 Coins a guest. The editor's Coins-per-invite dropdown shows which paid features you're using, so the price you see when you pick a card can be lower than the price at send. Leftover Coins stay in your account for a future event. There's also Paperless Pro at $250 a year for 250 guests.

The free part is the Flyer format, where the first 50 invites cost nothing. I covered what that does and doesn't include in is Paperless Post free?.

Greenvelope (some people search for it as Green Envelope) prices a single mailing by list size. The pricing starts at $19 for up to 20 recipients. A 100-guest mailing is $99 and a 250-guest mailing is $249. The company says every tier includes every feature, so the animated envelope and its liner are in the price from the start. If you send several times a year, an annual membership starts at $60 for mailings of up to 20 guests, $125 for up to 50 and $225 for up to 150.

Trial mode sends to up to 10 people at no charge. Any mailing to more than 10 needs a paid tier.

Here's a 100-guest engagement party on each:

The Lemonvite figures depend on how many guests you text. Publishing is $5 and covers up to 150 guests, including 50 invited by phone number. Events with larger phone guest lists may need additional credits to cover texting costs: each extra batch of 50 phone guests is $5. A hundred texted guests is one extra batch.

Design quality

Paperless Post is the one with the famous names. It works with Oscar de la Renta, kate spade new york and Rifle Paper Co., and those collections are the reason a lot of people open the site in the first place. I also found more casual and holiday designs there, which helps if you want a birthday card and a holiday card from the same account as your wedding suite.

Greenvelope's look is quieter. Every mailing arrives in an animated envelope, and you can customize the liner. You can add background music. I think its wedding designs hold up well next to Paperless Post's. For a casual birthday I'd find the range narrower.

Both are catalogs, which means another couple can send the same card you did. That bothered my cousin more than the price. It's the reason she ended up trying a third option: on Lemonvite you describe the event and the design engine produces an invitation for it. You can browse wedding invitations to see what it makes. A new account gets five designs free, so she could compare the result against the cards she'd shortlisted before spending anything.

Delivery and tracking

Both platforms send by text as well as email.

Paperless Post's pricing page says the first 50 free invitations go out by email or phone number, and it lists "Send via text, email, or Shareable Link" as always included. Greenvelope delivers by email or text too. Every paid Greenvelope account includes up to 500 text messages, and the limit can be raised for a fee. The company recommends email for larger sends.

Greenvelope is the stronger of the two on tracking. The dashboard shows responses and open rates in real time. Survey questions handle meal choices, and the answers appear there too. Guests don't need an account to reply. For a seated dinner, that combination saves you a spreadsheet.

Lemonvite sends by text and email, and guests outside the US and Canada get the same invitation over WhatsApp. Custom RSVP questions cover the meal-choice case, and the answers export with the guest list.

Sustainability

This one goes to Greenvelope. The company is a 1% for the Planet member and lists the National Forest Foundation and the National Park Foundation among its partners. It estimates its hosts have saved 2 million pounds of paper by going digital. That's the company's own figure, but the commitment is public and specific.

Paperless Post is digital too, so it saves the same paper per invitation.

Who should choose which

Choose Paperless Post if:

• A designer collaboration is the reason you're here
• You host many kinds of events and want one account for all of them
• You'll keep the card plain, because at 100 guests Basic is less than half Greenvelope's price
• Your list is near 100 and you want the envelope and liner, because Premium is $85.00 against Greenvelope's $99

Choose Greenvelope if:

• You're planning a wedding or another formal event with a long list
• You want the total before you start designing
• Meal choices and open tracking matter to you
• Your list is 10 or fewer, which trial mode sends free

My cousin's list was 85 people. On Greenvelope that meant the $99 tier. On Paperless Post, Basic would have been $40.80, Premium $76.50 and All Access $108.80.

Where Lemonvite fits as a third option

Both of these are priced for people who want a digital version of a printed card, with an envelope and a liner. If that's you, pick one of them and you'll be happy.

A lot of hosts want something else: a good-looking invitation with a reliable headcount, on a bill that stays at $5 for an emailed list and $10 for a hundred texted guests. That's what Lemonvite is for, and it's our product, so read this as the pitch it is. The invitation is designed for your event. Guests never see ads, and they RSVP from a personal link without creating an account. Co-hosts and updates to your guests are included.

What it lacks: there's no gift registry and no seating chart, and a 250-person wedding is over the guest cap. That one belongs on Greenvelope.

The full three-way breakdown is in Greenvelope vs Paperless Post vs Lemonvite. If you're comparing more than these two, see the best Paperless Post alternatives and the best Greenvelope alternatives.

My cousin's engagement party went out on Lemonvite for $10, since most of her 85 guests were texted. Design yours and compare it with the card in your other tab. Designing is free.