Handwrytten

Name: Handwrytten
Brand: Handwrytten
Price: 3.75374 USD

Robots holding real pens, writing notes you never have to write

Handwrytten is a handwritten note service that uses in-house robotic writing machines gripping real ballpoint pens to write your message on physical card stock, address the envelope, apply a real stamp, and mail it; it sells cards one at a time with no commitment, through monthly plans that lower the per-card rate, and through an API and CRM integrations that let a note be triggered from Salesforce, HubSpot, Shopify, or Zapier.

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Overview

Handwrytten was founded in Phoenix in 2014 by David Wachs, who had previously built and sold a mobile messaging company and concluded that the reason handwritten notes work is precisely that almost nobody sends them any more. The company's answer was not to print a handwriting font, which is what most of this category actually does, but to build machines that hold a real pen and press it into real card stock. The robots are designed and assembled in-house at a Tempe facility, the company holds patents on the mechanism, and the ink smears if you rub it, which is the crude test buyers keep applying.

Commercially it is one of the few tools in this category a solo founder can use on a Tuesday afternoon. Cards retail at $3.75 each with postage on top and no subscription required at all, so the entry price for a single note is under five dollars. If you send regularly, monthly plans buy down the card price: Pro at $449 a month takes it to $1.99, Enterprise at $649 takes it to $1.49, Elite at $849 to $1.29, and an Agency plan at $2,499 to $1.19. Unused credits roll over and you can cancel at any time, which softens the commitment considerably.

The catalog side is broader than the handwriting alone. There are over 100 pre-designed cards plus a custom stationery designer, more than 38 handwriting styles with custom handwriting and signature replication available for a one-time fee, gift cards from more than 20 retail brands that can be inserted into the envelope, spreadsheet bulk uploads, scheduled and birthday-triggered sends, QR tracking, and a geographic and demographic list-building tool for people who want to mail a ZIP code rather than a CRM segment. Sending covers the United States by First Class and reaches more than 190 countries.

The honest framing is that Handwrytten is a note company, not a gifting platform. There is no recipient-choice link, no catalog of physical gifts, no spend approval workflow, and no way to send without a mailing address. What you get instead is the cheapest credible way to put something in a mailbox that looks like a person wrote it, wired into the sales tools you already run, at a per-unit cost low enough that a five-person team can test the channel without a budget conversation.

Best for

Small sales teams, agencies, real estate and automotive professionals, ecommerce brands, and founders who want a physical touch that costs a few dollars rather than a few hundred, and who already have mailing addresses or can buy them.

Not the right fit for

Anyone who does not have the recipient's mailing address and does not want to ask for it; Handwrytten has no recipient-choice link, so the address problem is entirely yours to solve.
Buyers who want a gift catalog with spend controls, approval routing, and per-user budgets; this is a note printer with a stamp machine attached, not a governance product.
Teams sending fewer than roughly 200 cards a month who are eyeing the Pro plan; at $449 a month plus $1.99 a card you need real volume before the subscription beats the $3.75 pay-as-you-go rate.
International-first programs; sending reaches 190-plus countries but production is US-based, so overseas notes carry longer transit and higher postage than a local provider would.
Regulated sellers whose recipients work under strict gift policies; a note is usually fine, but the gift cards Handwrytten will happily insert are exactly the thing most corporate policies cap or ban.

How it works

1
You create an account, pick a card from the catalog or upload a custom design, choose one of the handwriting styles, and type or paste your message. Merge fields let the same message be personalized per recipient, and you can save it as a reusable template.
2
Recipients come from one of four places: typed in one at a time, pulled from your phone's contact book in the mobile app, uploaded as a spreadsheet for a bulk send, or pushed in automatically from Salesforce, HubSpot, Shopify, Zapier, or the API. Handwrytten also sells geographic and demographic list building if you want to mail a neighborhood rather than a pipeline.
3
The order routes to the Tempe production floor, where a robot writes the message onto the card and addresses the envelope in the same hand, then a real stamp goes on and it enters the mail. Notes typically go out within a business day or two, and a QR code can be printed on the card so scans are attributable back to the send.
4
Anything you want inside the envelope goes in at this stage: a gift card from one of the 20-plus supported brands, a business card, or a small flat item. Tracking and reporting are handled in the dashboard, and if the send was triggered from a CRM, the activity can be logged back against the record it came from.

Feature breakdown

26 features in 5 modules

Writing and materials

The part that is genuinely mechanical rather than a font.

Real pen on real card stock: Custom-built robots grip a standard ballpoint and write on thick card stock, so the ink sits in an indentation and smudges under a thumb. This is the difference buyers actually test for, and it is the reason to pick this category of vendor over a printed handwriting font.
38-plus handwriting styles: Named styles with varied slant, spacing, and letterforms, and the software varies letter formation across a batch so 500 cards do not look stamped from the same template.
Custom handwriting and signature replication: For a one-time fee the company will digitize your own hand and signature, so notes from a named founder actually look like that founder wrote them.
Over 100 stock card designs: A pre-designed catalog covering thank-yous, holidays, milestones, and neutral business cards, available without any design work on your side.
Custom stationery designer: An online customizer builds branded card fronts and interiors, so the card is yours rather than generic. There is no separate design retainer for straightforward branded cards.
Handwritten envelope and real stamp: The envelope is addressed by the same robot in the same hand and carries an actual stamp rather than an indicia, which is what stops the piece reading as bulk mail before it is opened.

Sending and campaigns

Getting from a list to a mailbox without doing it one at a time.

Spreadsheet bulk upload: Upload a CSV of recipients and merge fields and the whole batch queues at once, with bulk discounts applied above certain volumes.
Reusable message templates: Save message bodies with merge variables so a renewal note, a post-demo note, and a holiday card each have a fixed shape you are not rewriting every time.
Scheduled and future-dated sends: Queue a card to write and mail on a future date, which is how post-meeting and post-purchase follow-ups get set up in advance rather than remembered.
Birthday and anniversary automation: Recurring date-triggered sends fire from stored contact dates without anyone opening the dashboard that morning.
Geographic and demographic list building: Select recipients by city, ZIP code, or an area drawn on a map, and filter by income, net worth, and home ownership. This is a prospecting list product bolted onto the note product, and it is the reason real estate and home services buyers show up here.
Gift card and insert enclosure: Gift cards from more than 20 brands including Starbucks, Amazon, and Home Depot can be inserted, as can a business card or a small flat item, which is how a $25 gesture gets into the envelope without a separate gifting platform.

Automation and integrations

Triggering a physical send from the tools that already know the trigger happened.

Salesforce integration: Cards can be triggered from Salesforce activity, which is what turns a note from a manual gesture into a stage-change side effect.
HubSpot integration: Connects the note send to HubSpot workflows so deal stage, lifecycle stage, or form submission can put a card in the mail.
Shopify integration: Post-purchase and win-back notes fire off store events, which is the ecommerce retention use case that keeps this vendor busy.
Zapier, Make, and Integrately: Three separate no-code automation connectors cover anything not natively supported, including sequence tools that can fire a webhook.
REST API: Public API documentation covers card creation, recipient handling, and order submission, so a note becomes a call from your own application. API access is listed on the business plans.
Vertical CRM connectors: CDK and Fortellis and Tekion for automotive dealerships, Blackbaud Raiser's Edge for nonprofit fundraising, which is unusual specificity for a company this size.
AI assistant connector: Handwrytten publishes an integration for Claude, so a note can be composed and dispatched from an assistant rather than the dashboard.

Tracking and attribution

Proving the mailbox did something, which is the hard part of this channel.

QR code tracking: A trackable QR code printed on the card ties a scan back to the individual send, which is the only clean first-party signal you get from a piece of paper.
Per-send status reporting: The dashboard reports order status through writing, mailing, and dispatch so you know what actually went out and when.
CRM activity logging: Sends triggered through the CRM connectors can be written back as activity on the record, so the note shows up on the timeline alongside emails and calls when someone asks what influenced the deal.

Access and account handling

The commercial mechanics that make it usable by one person.

No-commitment single sends: Cards retail at $3.75 with postage added and no subscription at all, so evaluating the channel costs the price of a sandwich rather than a monthly plan.
Rolling credits: Plans renew every 30 days and unused credits roll over rather than expiring at month end, which removes the use-it-or-lose-it pressure most credit models create.
iOS and Android apps: Mobile apps pull from your phone contact book, which is how field sales and agents send a note from a parking lot after a meeting.
International delivery to 190-plus countries: Production is US-based but mailing reaches more than 190 countries at the applicable international postage rate.

Use cases

4 documented

Founder-led sales team of five

Email reply rates have collapsed, the team has 40 high-value accounts, and nobody has the time or the handwriting to send real notes after discovery calls.

A HubSpot workflow fires a card on deal stage change. At the pay-as-you-go rate the whole program costs under $200 a month, and the QR code on the card gives a countable signal about which accounts engaged.

Ecommerce brand running post-purchase retention

First-time buyers do not come back, and the follow-up email sequence competes with everything else in the inbox.

The Shopify integration sends a handwritten thank-you with a QR discount code on the first order. Scans attribute repeat purchases to the card, and the per-unit cost stays under four dollars including postage.

Real estate agent farming a neighborhood

The agent wants consistent presence in a specific set of streets without buying generic postcard blasts that get binned unopened.

Geographic list building selects the ZIP code and the demographic filters narrow it to owner-occupied homes above an income threshold, then a handwritten note in a stamped envelope goes out monthly.

Agency running gifting for multiple clients

Several client accounts each need branded stationery, separate message templates, and per-client reporting without four separate vendor relationships.

The Agency plan at $2,499 a month brings the card price down to $1.19 and covers custom stationery per client, with the API handling the send volume programmatically.

Pricing

from $3.75 per card with no subscription, or $374 per month on an annual Pro plan

Pay per card with no commitment, or buy a monthly platform plan that lowers the per-card rate. Postage is always billed separately at prevailing USPS rates, and gift cards or inserts are billed at face value on top.

Plan	Price	Includes
Pay as you go	$3.75 per card, plus postage	No monthly fee and no commitment Full card catalog and handwriting styles Single sends or small batches Mobile apps and web dashboard Gift card inserts billed at face value The correct starting point for almost every small business. You do not need a plan until volume passes a few hundred cards a month.
Pro	$449 per month ($374 billed annually)	$1.99 per card QR code tracking Birthday and anniversary automation Multi-step campaigns API access Break-even against pay-as-you-go is roughly 255 cards a month before the fee earns its keep.
Enterprise	$649 per month ($540 billed annually)	$1.49 per card Everything in Pro Higher-volume production priority Bulk spreadsheet sends CRM integrations
Elite	$849 per month ($707 billed annually)	$1.29 per card Everything in Enterprise Best per-card rate outside the Agency plan
Agency	$2,499 per month ($2,082 billed annually)	$1.19 per card Multi-client account structure Per-client stationery and templates Highest volume tier before custom quoting

Add-ons

Postage (Prevailing USPS rate): Billed separately on every card, domestic First Class or the applicable international rate.
Custom handwriting or signature replication (One-time fee): Digitizes your own hand so notes look like they came from a specific person.
Gift card enclosure (Face value of the card): More than 20 retail brands including Starbucks, Amazon, and Home Depot.
Geographic and demographic list building (Quoted per list): Select by city, ZIP, or a map area and filter by income, net worth, and home ownership.

Billing notes

There is no platform fee unless you choose one. This is the structural difference from every gifting platform in this category, where a seat license or annual contract is the price of entry.
Plans renew every 30 days, unused credits roll over rather than expiring, and you can cancel at any time. Annual prepayment discounts the monthly fee by roughly 17 percent.
Postage is never included in the quoted card price. Budget the prevailing USPS First-Class rate on top of every domestic card, and considerably more for international.
Worked example for a $25 gesture on pay as you go: $3.75 for the card and handwriting, roughly $0.75 to $0.80 for a domestic stamp, and $25.00 for an inserted gift card, for an all-in cost near $29.50 with no platform fee and no markup on the gift card face value. The same send on the Pro plan is $1.99 plus postage plus $25.00, so about $27.75 in marginal cost, but you have also paid $449 that month whether you send one card or a thousand.
There is no unclaimed-gift refund mechanism because there is nothing to claim. A card that is never opened is simply money spent, unlike a choice-link gift platform where unredeemed value can come back to you as credit.

Value assessment: On pure cost per physical touch, Handwrytten is the cheapest credible option in this category for a small team, and the reason is structural: you can spend $3.75 and stop. Gifting platforms charge a platform fee before you have sent anything, and handwritten-note competitors either require a prepaid credit block or a monthly subscription. The monthly plans here are only worth buying above roughly 250 cards a month, and a lot of buyers who sign up for Pro would have been better off on pay as you go for another two quarters. Judged as a note service it is priced fairly; judged as a gifting platform it is not competing, because it is not one.

Strengths & limitations

Strengths

Genuine robotic writing with a real pen on real card stock, built and patented in-house, which survives the thumb-smudge test that printed handwriting fonts fail.
You can send a single card for under five dollars with no subscription, which is close to unique in a category built on platform fees and annual contracts.
Deep integration coverage for a company this size: Salesforce, HubSpot, Shopify, Zapier, Make, Integrately, an API, and vertical connectors for automotive dealerships and nonprofit fundraising.
Custom handwriting and signature replication makes notes from a named person plausible rather than generic, which matters when the recipient knows the sender.
Rolling credits and cancel-anytime terms make the paid plans far less punitive than the prepaid credit blocks competitors sell.
Gift card inserts at face value with no markup, so a $25 gesture costs $25 plus the card rather than $25 plus a platform cut.
Bundled prospecting list building by geography and demographics, which no other vendor in this category offers as part of the same product.

Limitations

You must have the mailing address. There is no choice link, no email-first flow, and no way to send to someone whose address you do not know, which is the single biggest workflow gap versus the gifting platforms.
No gift catalog, no recipient choice, no spend approval workflow, and no per-user budget controls, so it cannot serve as a governed company gifting program.
The monthly plans are expensive relative to the volume most small teams actually send; Pro at $449 needs roughly 255 cards a month before it beats the no-commitment rate.
Postage is quoted separately everywhere, which makes the advertised per-card prices look better than the real all-in number until you do the arithmetic.
US-based production means international sends carry longer transit and higher postage than using a vendor with in-country facilities.
The company is small and lightly funded, with a reported total under half a million dollars raised, so buyers should not expect enterprise procurement support or a large roadmap.
Attribution stops at a QR scan. There is no gift-acceptance event, no redemption timestamp, and no native pipeline-influence reporting, so proving impact takes work on your side.

Head-to-head comparisons

5 alternatives

Handwrytten vs Simply Noted

from $2.76 per card (100-credit block, $358 all in with postage)

Both use robots with real pens and both are Arizona companies, so the product is close to identical in kind. Handwrytten sells single cards at $3.75 with no commitment; Simply Noted sells prepaid credit blocks starting at $2.76 a card for 100 or a $497 flat-rate unlimited plan. Choose Handwrytten if you want to test the channel without prepaying anything. Choose Simply Noted if you already know you will send at least a few hundred a month, because its per-card rates fall faster with volume and the unlimited plan is unbeatable above about 560 cards.

Full Handwrytten vs Simply Noted comparison

Handwrytten vs Scribeless

from £1.99 per card, domestic postage included

Scribeless bundles domestic postage into a single per-card price and runs production facilities in North America, the UK, France, and Germany, which makes it the better choice for European or multi-country sending. Handwrytten quotes postage separately and prints in Arizona. Pick Scribeless if you mail outside the United States or want one all-in number per piece; pick Handwrytten if you are US-only and want the lowest no-commitment entry price plus deeper CRM connectors.

Full Handwrytten vs Scribeless comparison

Handwrytten vs Lob

from $0 per month with postcards at $0.905 each

Lob is a direct mail API for developers sending postcards, letters, and checks at machine scale, starting free up to 6,000 pieces a year with postcards under a dollar. Handwrytten is a handwriting service for low-volume, high-attention pieces. If you are mailing tens of thousands of statements, notices, or offers programmatically, Lob is the correct tool and Handwrytten is not. If you are mailing 200 notes to named accounts and want them to look personal, Handwrytten is right and Lob will feel like industrial printing.

Full Handwrytten vs Lob comparison

Handwrytten vs Goody

from $0 (Starter, unlimited sends in the US, Canada, and UK), then $20 per user per month (Pro)

Goody sends gifts to an email address or phone number and lets the recipient supply their own shipping address, with a genuinely free Starter plan for US, Canada, and UK sends. Handwrytten needs the address up front and sends paper, not products. Use Goody when you do not have addresses and want a real gift with a swap option; use Handwrytten when you do have addresses and want the cheapest possible physical touch at scale.

Full Handwrytten vs Goody comparison

Handwrytten vs Loop & Tie

from $0 per year (Free, with $5 flat-rate shipping per gift), then $500 per year (Essentials)

Loop and Tie is a choice-based gifting platform where the recipient picks from a curated collection at a $30, $50, $75, or $100 price point and unclaimed value returns to you as credit. Handwrytten has no choice mechanic and no refund path for an unopened card. Pick Loop and Tie when the gift itself is the message and you want budget certainty with recovery on expiry; pick Handwrytten when the message is the message and a gift would trip the recipient's policy anyway.

Full Handwrytten vs Loop & Tie comparison

Implementation & onboarding

Setup time: Under an hour for a first send. Create an account, choose a card, pick a handwriting style, paste a message, and check out. Connecting Salesforce or HubSpot takes another hour or two, and custom stationery design adds a few days of proofing.
Learning curve: Low. The dashboard is a card configurator plus a recipient list, and the only genuine skill involved is writing a short note that does not read like marketing copy. Teams that paste their email sequence into the card get poor results and blame the channel.
Onboarding: Entirely self-serve at every level including the business plans. Free physical samples are the recommended first step, because judging the handwriting from a photograph on a website is not possible.
Migration notes: There is nothing to migrate from another notes vendor beyond a recipient CSV and your message templates. If you are moving from a gifting platform, the harder problem is that Handwrytten requires mailing addresses you may not currently hold, since choice-link platforms collect the address from the recipient and may not surface it to you in exportable form. Audit your address coverage before switching.

Platform, API & security

Platforms: Web dashboardiOS appAndroid appREST API
API: Public REST API covering card selection, message and merge handling, recipient data, and order submission, listed as included on the business plans. Zapier, Make, and Integrately cover no-code paths, and a Claude connector is published for assistant-driven sends.
Compliance: Standard US commercial mail handlingNo SOC 2 or ISO certification advertised publicly
Data residency: US-based production and operations in Tempe, Arizona; no regional hosting options advertised.
SSO: Not advertised.
Security notes: Recipient names and mailing addresses are the sensitive data here, and they are uploaded to a US vendor for physical fulfilment. There is no published trust center, SOC 2 report, or data processing addendum on the marketing site, which is worth raising directly with the company if you handle regulated customer lists.

Support & resources

Channels: Email supportPhone supportIn-dashboard help
Documentation: Help content and API documentation on the company site, plus integration guides for Salesforce, HubSpot, Shopify, and the automation connectors.
Community: No formal user community; the founder is publicly active writing about the handwritten note channel.

Company

Founded: 2014
Headquarters: Phoenix and Tempe, Arizona, United States
Ownership: Privately held, founder-led
Founders: David Wachs
Employees: Not disclosed; small privately held team with an in-house robotics and production facility
Funding: Lightly funded. Public sources report roughly $309K raised across two rounds, with the most recent round closing in March 2021, so the business has effectively grown on revenue rather than venture capital.

Funding history

Round	Amount	Year	Notes
Seed and follow-on	Approximately $309K total	2021	Two small rounds reported publicly, with the last closing in March 2021. Handwrytten is not a venture-scale story and does not present itself as one.

Timeline

2014Founded in Phoenix by David Wachs, who had previously built and sold the mobile messaging company Cellit, on the premise that handwritten notes work because nobody sends them.
2016In-house robotic writing machines move into production at the Tempe facility, with patents filed on the pen-holding mechanism.
2020Ranked number 148 on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing US companies.
2021Closes a small funding round and expands the integration surface with Salesforce, HubSpot, Shopify, and the no-code automation connectors.
2024Adds vertical CRM connectors for automotive dealerships and nonprofit fundraising, plus geographic and demographic list building for prospecting sends.
2026Publishes an AI assistant connector for Claude and runs a four-tier business plan structure alongside no-commitment single-card pricing.

Integrations

Salesforce
HubSpot
Shopify
Zapier
Make
Integrately
SyncSpider
CDK and Fortellis (automotive)
Tekion (automotive)
Blackbaud Raiser's Edge (nonprofit)
REST API
Claude assistant connector

Frequently asked questions

11 questions

What is Handwrytten?

Handwrytten is a handwritten note service. Custom-built robots hold a real ballpoint pen and write your message onto physical card stock, address the envelope in the same hand, apply a real stamp, and mail it. You can send one card at a time for $3.75 plus postage with no subscription, or buy a monthly plan that lowers the per-card rate.

Is the handwriting actually handwritten?

It is written by a machine holding a real pen, not printed. That distinction matters: the ink sits in an indentation in the card stock and will smudge if rubbed, which is the test recipients unconsciously apply. It is not a human hand, and the company does not claim it is, but it is not a handwriting font on an inkjet printer either.

What does a $25 gift actually cost to send through Handwrytten?

On pay as you go: $3.75 for the card and handwriting, roughly $0.75 to $0.80 for a domestic First Class stamp, and $25.00 for the inserted gift card at face value, for about $29.50 all in with no platform fee and no markup on the gift. On the Pro plan the card drops to $1.99, so the marginal cost is about $27.75, but you have also paid $449 that month regardless of volume.

Do I need a monthly plan?

No, and most small businesses should not buy one initially. Cards retail at $3.75 with no commitment. The Pro plan at $449 a month takes the card price to $1.99, so it only starts paying for itself above roughly 255 cards a month. Enterprise, Elite, and Agency plans lower the rate further at higher fees.

Can I send without knowing the recipient's mailing address?

No. This is the main limitation versus gifting platforms like Goody or Loop and Tie, which send to an email address and let the recipient supply their own shipping details at redemption. Handwrytten needs a full mailing address before it can write the envelope. If address coverage is your bottleneck, a choice-link gifting platform solves a problem Handwrytten does not.

Can a note be triggered from my CRM or sales sequence?

Yes. There are native integrations for Salesforce, HubSpot, and Shopify, plus Zapier, Make, and Integrately for anything else, and a REST API for direct calls. In practice this means a deal stage change, a closed-won event, or a completed first order can put a physical card in the mail without anyone opening the dashboard.

How do I know whether the card worked?

The main first-party signal is a trackable QR code printed on the card, which ties a scan back to the specific send. Sends triggered through the CRM connectors can also be logged as activity against the record, so the note appears on the timeline when you review what influenced a deal. There is no acceptance or redemption event the way there is with a gift link, so attribution here is weaker than on a gifting platform.

What happens if the card is never opened?

Nothing, and you do not get the money back. Unlike choice-based gifting platforms, where an unclaimed gift usually returns to your balance as credit, a mailed card is a sunk cost the moment it ships. The offset is that the sunk cost is under five dollars rather than the value of a gift.

Will a handwritten note breach the recipient's gift policy?

A card on its own almost never does; that is one of the quiet advantages of the note channel over gifting. The gift cards Handwrytten will insert are a different matter, since most corporate policies cap gift value, many public sector and financial services employers ban cash equivalents outright, and gift cards are specifically the category treated as cash equivalent. If your buyers work under a strict policy, send the note and skip the enclosure.

Can Handwrytten send internationally?

Yes, to more than 190 countries, but production is in Arizona so international pieces are mailed from the United States. Expect longer transit and higher postage than a vendor with in-country production facilities. For volume campaigns aimed at Europe, a provider with local facilities will land faster and cheaper.

Who owns Handwrytten and how big is it?

It is privately held and founder-led by David Wachs, who founded it in Phoenix in 2014 after selling a previous mobile messaging company. Public sources report roughly $309K raised in total, with the last round in March 2021, so it has grown mainly on revenue. It reached number 148 on the Inc. 5000 in 2020.

Editorial verdict

Handwrytten is the lowest-friction way for a small business to test physical mail, and the pricing structure is the reason. Nobody else in this category lets you spend $3.75, look at what arrives, and decide. The robots write with a real pen, the integration list is unusually deep for a company this size, and gift cards go in the envelope at face value with no platform cut. Buy it if you have mailing addresses and want a cheap, credible physical touch wired into HubSpot or Salesforce. Do not buy it as a gifting program: there is no recipient choice, no address collection, no spend governance, and no way to recover the money when a card goes unopened. And be honest about volume before signing up for a monthly plan, because most teams who buy Pro would have spent less staying on pay as you go.

Written by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Awards, when shown, are judged against the published criteria in our methodology.