The short version
These are different products that happen to overlap on one use case.
Handwrytten is a handwriting service. Robotic arms hold real pens and write your message in real ink on a real card. It’s built for sales and marketing teams who send outreach at volume and want it to feel handwritten.
Delivered Cards is a birthday subscription. You enter someone once, and they get a printed card in the mail every year, forever, for a flat $5.
If what you want is a handwritten note sent when you decide to send it, Handwrytten is better and this comparison is short. If what you want is birthdays handled permanently without you thinking about it, keep reading.
Price
Handwrytten’s cards start at $3.75 each, with a value-priced $3.25 option that carries their logo on the back. Postage is billed separately at the current USPS rate. So a single card runs roughly $4.50–$4.60 all-in, per send.
Their business plans bring the per-card price down substantially — into the $1.19–$1.99 range — but those plans start at several hundred dollars a month. That’s excellent economics at volume and irrelevant below it.
Delivered Cards is $5 per person per year. Card, printing, envelope, and USPS postage included. No plan, no platform fee, no postage line.
| Handwrytten | Delivered Cards | |
|---|---|---|
| Single card | ~$3.75 + postage | — |
| Per person, per year | ~$4.57, per send | $5.00, all-inclusive |
| Postage | Billed separately | Included |
| Monthly plan required for best rate | Yes | No plan at all |
| 25 people, one card each, one year | ~$114 + your setup time | $125 |
| 25 people, five years running | ~$571, re-triggered annually | $625, untouched |
On raw per-card cost, Handwrytten is slightly cheaper. That’s a fair reading and we won’t pretend otherwise.
What the table doesn’t show is that those are different transactions. One is a card you send. The other is a card that keeps happening.
Handwriting vs printing
This is the real difference, and it favors them.
Handwrytten writes with an actual pen. Up close, it reads as handwriting — different pen pressure, natural variation, real ink you can feel on the card stock. For a prospecting note or a thank-you after a big deal, that’s a genuine advantage and it’s why the company exists.
We print your message in a clean typeface. It is not handwriting and we don’t imply otherwise anywhere on our site.
If handwriting is the point, buy Handwrytten. We’re not going to argue you out of it.
Our position is narrower: for a birthday card that arrives every year from the same person, handwriting matters less than you’d think. The recipient knows a card arriving annually on their birthday is organized. What they register is that you set it up and it keeps coming — the reliability is the message. That’s a different value than a handwritten note’s surprise.
Automation
Both services can automate birthdays. The difference is what it takes to get there.
Handwrytten includes automated birthdays and anniversaries in its business plans, along with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zapier integrations plus a full API. It’s a genuine automation platform — if you have a CRM full of contacts and a developer or an ops person, you can wire it into your systems properly.
That capability lives behind a monthly plan. For a small business or an individual sending twenty cards a year, the plan cost exceeds the card cost by a wide margin.
Delivered Cards has no integrations at all. No API, no Zapier, no CRM sync. You upload a spreadsheet. The automation is that a subscription renews and we mail the card — that’s the entire mechanism, and it’s included in the $5.
| Handwrytten | Delivered Cards | |
|---|---|---|
| CRM integrations | Salesforce, HubSpot, Zapier, API | None |
| Automated birthdays | Yes, on business plans | Yes, always |
| Setup for 30 people | Import or integrate, configure campaign | Upload spreadsheet |
| Cost of automation | Plan fee | $0 |
Everything else
| Handwrytten | Delivered Cards | |
|---|---|---|
| Card designs | Large catalog, custom designs, upload your own | Six curated designs |
| Other occasions | Yes — thank you, holidays, anything | Birthdays only |
| International | ~190 countries | US only |
| Branding | Custom cards, logos, business card inserts | Return address on envelope only |
| Gift cards | Yes, add-on | No |
| Postmark | Phoenix, AZ | Virginia |
| Scale | Built for thousands | Built for tens to hundreds |
Handwrytten wins most of those rows. It’s a bigger company with a bigger product, and if you need any of design variety, other occasions, international delivery, custom branding, or CRM sync, that decides it.
Who should choose which
Choose Handwrytten if:
- Handwriting matters to you
- You send more than birthdays
- You need international delivery
- You want CRM integration or an API
- You send at volume where plan pricing kicks in
- You want custom-branded cards
Choose Delivered Cards if:
- You want birthdays specifically, permanently, at a flat price
- You’re sending to tens or low hundreds of people
- You don’t want a monthly plan or a postage line
- Setup should take fifteen minutes and then never again
- You’d rather a card arrive every year than pick a good moment to send one
The honest summary
Handwrytten is the better product. It does more, does it in real ink, and does it at scale.
We do one thing: a birthday card that shows up every year at a flat all-in price, with nothing to configure and nothing to renew. If that’s the shape of the problem you have, we’re simpler and there’s no plan underneath the price. If it isn’t, they’ll serve you better.
If you’re weighing several options, our buyer’s guide to automated birthday card services covers the category, and we’ve written comparisons with Postable, Felt, and Hallmark too.
See Delivered Cards for business → · Send a card to one person →
Handwrytten pricing and features verified August 2026 from published sources. Check their site for current terms — we don’t control their pricing and it changes.