# Simply Noted

> Simply Noted is a handwritten mail automation company that runs a fleet of purpose-built robots pressing real ballpoint pens into card stock to write notes, envelopes, and jumbo postcards at scale; it sells prepaid card credits with volume pricing from $2.76 down to $0.84 per card, a $497 per month flat-rate unlimited plan, and connects to Salesforce, Zapier, and a public API so sends can be triggered from a CRM.

- Category: Corporate Gifting & Direct Mail (https://saastracker.org/categories/direct-mail-gifting)
- Website: https://www.simplynoted.com
- Starting price: $2.76 per card (100-credit block, $358 all in with postage)
- Free plan: No
- Free trial: No free trial; free samples and a first-card offer for email subscribers let you judge the handwriting before buying a block
- Founded: 2018, HQ: Phoenix, Arizona, United States, Ownership: Bootstrapped, founder-owned
- Profile last reviewed: 2026-08-22
- Canonical profile: https://saastracker.org/products/simply-noted

## Overview

Simply Noted was founded in 2018 by Rick Elmore, a former NFL draft pick who moved into medical device sales and discovered the channel the hard way: he mailed 500 handwritten notes to a prospect list and produced close to $300,000 in sales against a $50,000 monthly quota. The prototype he built during an MBA at the University of Arizona became the company, and it is now based in Phoenix with a production floor of custom-built handwriting robots.

What separates it inside the handwritten-note category is manufacturing depth. The company reports roughly 225 purpose-built machines, nine patents, computer vision, automated paper feed, and mailing automation, and the machines write with an actual ballpoint pen rather than printing a handwriting typeface. It is also fully bootstrapped: no outside investment at all, scaled past $10 million in revenue, with more than 10,000 business customers cited including Marriott, Ford, Tesla, Edward Jones, and the NCAA.

The commercial model is prepaid credits with steep volume discounts, which is materially different from a subscription. One hundred folded note cards cost $2.76 each plus $0.82 per card in postage, so $3.58 all in. At 1,000 cards it falls to $1.79 plus postage, and at 50,000 to $0.84. Credits last twelve months. Alongside that sits an unlimited plan at a $497 flat monthly rate, which the company advertises at an effective $0.89 per note, meaning it only makes sense above roughly 560 cards a month. Six-by-eleven jumbo postcards run slightly cheaper than folded cards at every tier.

The tradeoff is scope. Simply Noted does what Handwrytten does, better at volume and worse at the low end, and neither of them is a gifting platform. There is no recipient-choice link, no gift catalog with spend approvals, and no way to send to somebody whose mailing address you do not have. You are buying a very good physical printing and mailing operation with a CRM connector, and the address problem stays yours.

## How it works

1. You buy a block of credits at the volume tier you want, or subscribe to the flat-rate unlimited plan. Credits are the currency: one credit is one card written and mailed, with postage charged separately at $0.82 per card for standard First-Class handling.

2. You choose a card format (folded note card or jumbo postcard), pick a handwriting style, and write your message with merge fields for personalization. Branding, logos, and custom card fronts are configured once and reused.

3. Recipients arrive by CSV upload, by manual entry, or automatically from Salesforce through Process Builder, from Zapier's connector library, or from a direct API call. That last path is what turns a note into an automated consequence of a deal stage, a purchase, or a support resolution.

4. The Phoenix production floor writes the card and the envelope with a real pen, applies postage, and mails it. Every card can carry a trackable QR code, and mail tracking plus delivery reporting is included, which is the attribution surface you get back.

## Best for

Teams that already know handwritten mail works for them and send hundreds to thousands of cards a month, especially real estate, hospitality, insurance, mortgage, franchise, and B2B sales operations that want the per-card price driven down and the sends triggered from a CRM.

## Not the right fit for

- Anyone testing the channel for the first time with ten cards; the smallest credit block is 100 cards at $358 all in, which is a real commitment compared with buying a single card elsewhere.
- Buyers who need a gift catalog, recipient choice, spend approvals, or per-user budgets; Simply Noted is a printing and mailing operation, not a gifting governance platform.
- Teams without mailing addresses, since there is no email-first choice link that collects the address from the recipient at redemption.
- International-first programs; production and postage pricing are built around US First-Class mail and the published rate card is domestic.
- Organizations that need SOC 2 evidence and a formal data processing agreement before uploading a customer list, because none of that is published on the marketing site.

## Features

### Robotic handwriting and materials

The manufacturing story, which is the actual product here.

- **Real ballpoint pen on paper**: Purpose-built machines grip an actual pen and press it into the card, so the writing has indentation and smudges. This is not a handwriting font on an inkjet, and it is the reason recipients open the envelope.
- **Fleet of roughly 225 machines**: The company reports operating around 225 custom robots with computer vision, automated paper feeds, and mailing automation, which is what makes 50,000-card orders quotable at 84 cents.
- **Nine patents on the mechanism**: The robotics were designed from the ground up rather than adapted from plotters, and the company holds nine patents covering the approach.
- **Multiple handwriting styles**: A selection of named styles with different slant and letterform, chosen per campaign so a hospitality thank-you and a mortgage follow-up do not look identical.
- **Folded note cards and jumbo postcards**: Two formats: a standard folded card in a handwritten envelope, and a six-by-eleven jumbo postcard that runs about twenty cents cheaper per piece at every volume tier and needs no envelope.
- **Branded and custom card fronts**: Logos, custom artwork, and branded interiors are configured once and reused across campaigns, so the card carries your identity rather than a generic stock design.
- **Handwritten envelopes**: The envelope is addressed by the same machine in the same hand, which is what stops the piece being sorted into the junk pile before it is opened.

### Sending and automation

How a note becomes something that happens automatically.

- **Bulk CSV sending**: Upload a recipient list with merge fields and queue the entire batch, which is the standard path for campaign sends rather than one-offs.
- **Salesforce integration**: Send from inside Salesforce and automate sends off customer activity using Process Builder, so a stage change or a closed opportunity mails a card without human involvement.
- **Zapier connector**: Access to Zapier's library of 2,500-plus applications, which covers HubSpot, sequence tools, form builders, and anything else that can fire a trigger.
- **Public API**: The full feature set is exposed through documented API endpoints, so sends can be issued directly from your own application rather than through the dashboard.
- **Webhook and workflow automations**: The unlimited plan explicitly includes CRM, API, Zapier, and webhook automations rather than treating programmatic access as a paid upgrade.
- **Message templates with personalization**: Saved message bodies with variables mean a campaign has a consistent shape and the merge data does the personalizing, rather than someone rewriting 400 notes.

### Tracking and attribution

What you can actually count after the card leaves the building.

- **Trackable QR code on every card**: Included on all plans, not sold as an upgrade. The scan is the single cleanest first-party signal available from a piece of physical mail and the only way to tie a specific recipient to a specific response.
- **Mail tracking**: Delivery progress is reported per piece, so you know when the card landed rather than guessing at a mailing window.
- **Campaign reporting**: Volume, delivery, and scan data aggregate per campaign so a batch can be evaluated against a control rather than judged on anecdotes.
- **CRM write-back through the connectors**: Sends triggered from Salesforce or through Zapier can be logged as activity on the record, which is how the card shows up in a pipeline-influence review months later.

### Pricing structure and account terms

Unusually transparent for this category, and worth reading closely.

- **Published volume rate card**: Seven price points from 100 to 50,000 cards are printed on the pricing page with per-card and total figures, which almost nobody else in corporate gifting does.
- **Flat-rate unlimited plan**: A $497 monthly flat rate for unlimited notes, advertised at an effective $0.89 per note. Above roughly 560 cards a month it is the cheapest option available anywhere in this category.
- **Twelve-month credit expiry**: Prepaid credits are valid for twelve months and can be used any time within that window, so a seasonal buyer is not forced to burn a block by month end.
- **Financing on large orders**: Twelve-month financing on orders of 10,000 cards or more and three-month options on smaller ones, which is a working-capital feature aimed squarely at franchise and agency buyers.
- **Postage quoted openly**: Postage is stated as $0.82 per card at First-Class rates, with Standard and Nonprofit rates available, so the all-in number is calculable before you buy rather than after.

## Use cases

- **Hospitality group running guest follow-up**: Thousands of guests a month, many with no email address or phone number on file, and no channel to reach them after checkout. Outcome: A CSV of stay records mails handwritten thank-yous with a QR offer code. At 5,000 cards the rate is $1.48 plus postage, and the QR scans give a countable return rate that email could never produce for those guests.
- **Mortgage or insurance broker keeping a book warm**: Renewal and referral revenue depends on being remembered by several hundred past clients who are not reading marketing emails. Outcome: Anniversary and renewal notes fire from the CRM through Zapier. A few hundred cards a month at the 500-credit tier costs about $2.93 a card all in, and the notes look personal enough that clients reply to them.
- **High-volume B2B sales team**: Cold email is saturated and the team wants a physical touch on every target account without a per-card price that makes finance object. Outcome: The $497 flat-rate unlimited plan covers the whole team's sends. Above 560 cards a month the marginal cost of one more note is effectively zero plus postage, which changes what the team is willing to try.
- **Franchise network mailing at national scale**: Dozens of locations each want local handwritten outreach, and central marketing needs one supplier, one rate, and one reporting view. Outcome: A 25,000-credit block at $1.00 per card with twelve-month financing covers the network, branded card fronts differ by location, and the API distributes sends per franchisee.

## Pricing

Prepaid card credits with published volume tiers, or a flat monthly rate for unlimited notes. Postage is charged separately at $0.82 per card at First-Class rates.

- **Prepay 100 credits**: $2.76 per folded card, plus $0.82 postage. $358.00 total including postage; $3.58 per card all in; Credits valid twelve months; Jumbo postcards $2.56 per card at the same volume; Full handwriting style catalog. The entry point, and a real commitment: you are buying 100 cards, not one.
- **Prepay 1,000 credits**: $1.79 per folded card, plus $0.82 postage. $2,610.00 total; $2.61 per card all in; Jumbo postcards $1.59 per card; Three-month financing available; QR tracking and mail tracking included.
- **Prepay 10,000 credits**: $1.15 per folded card, plus $0.82 postage. $19,700.00 total; $1.97 per card all in; Jumbo postcards $0.95 per card; Twelve-month financing available; Postage becomes the largest line item at this tier.
- **Unlimited**: $497 per month, flat rate. Unlimited handwritten notes each month; Advertised effective rate of $0.89 per note; CRM, API, Zapier, and webhook automations included; Mail tracking and trackable QR on every card; Best option above roughly 560 cards a month. The most aggressive pricing in the handwritten-note category, and the reason high-volume buyers pick Simply Noted over Handwrytten.
- **Prepay 50,000 credits**: $0.84 per folded card, plus $0.82 postage. $83,000.00 total; $1.66 per card all in; Jumbo postcards $0.64 per card; Custom pricing above 50,000; Twelve-month financing available.

Add-ons:

- Postage ($0.82 per card): First-Class rates quoted; Standard and Nonprofit rates are available and cheaper for qualifying mailers.
- Custom card design (Quoted): Branded fronts, logos, and custom interiors configured once and reused.
- Financing (No stated fee): Twelve-month terms on orders of 10,000 or more, three-month terms on smaller orders.

Billing notes:

- There is no seat license anywhere in the model. You pay per card or you pay one flat monthly rate for the whole team, which is the opposite of the per-user pricing used by the gifting platforms in this category.
- The advertised $0.89 effective rate on the unlimited plan is arithmetic, not a promise: $497 divided by roughly 560 notes. Send 200 notes a month and your real rate is $2.49 each before postage, which is worse than the 1,000-credit block.
- Postage at $0.82 per card is quoted separately everywhere and becomes the dominant cost at high volumes. At the 50,000 tier the postage costs almost exactly as much as the handwriting does.
- Credits expire after twelve months. That is generous by category standards but it is still a use-it-or-lose-it clock on a prepayment, so size the block against a realistic annual plan rather than an optimistic one.
- Worked example for a $25 gesture: Simply Noted does not sell gifts, so the comparable send is a card with a $25 gift card you source yourself. At the 500-credit tier that is $2.11 for the card, $0.82 postage, and $25.00 face value, about $27.93 all in with zero platform fee and zero markup on the gift, since nobody is taking a cut of the gift value. Handling and inserting the gift card is on you.
- Nothing is refunded for an undelivered or unopened card. There is no equivalent of the unclaimed-gift credit that choice-based platforms return to your balance, so treat every mailed card as spent on dispatch.

Value assessment: At volume this is the best price per physical touch available in the category, and the flat-rate unlimited plan is genuinely aggressive: above roughly 560 cards a month, one more note costs you nothing but a stamp. That changes behaviour, because teams stop rationing sends. Below a few hundred cards a month the picture inverts. A 100-credit block at $3.58 all in is more expensive than sending single cards at Handwrytten, and the $497 unlimited plan is terrible value at 150 notes. Simply Noted is priced for people who have already validated the channel, and it is honest enough to publish the entire rate card so you can work out where you sit.

## Strengths

- Fully published volume rate card with per-card, total, and postage figures at seven tiers, which is a level of pricing transparency almost nobody else in corporate gifting offers.
- Real ballpoint pen on paper from a fleet of roughly 225 purpose-built machines with nine patents, so quality holds at volume rather than degrading.
- The $497 flat-rate unlimited plan is the cheapest way to send high volumes of handwritten mail anywhere in this category, and it includes API, CRM, Zapier, and webhook automation rather than gating them.
- Bootstrapped past $10 million in revenue with no outside investment, which means no investor pressure toward enterprise repositioning or a forced price rise.
- QR tracking and mail tracking on every card at every tier, so attribution is not an upsell.
- Twelve-month credit validity plus financing on large orders, which is a genuinely small-business-friendly working capital arrangement.
- Two formats with real price separation: jumbo postcards land about twenty cents cheaper per piece than folded cards at every tier and skip the envelope entirely.

## Limitations

- The minimum meaningful purchase is 100 cards at $358, so you cannot cheaply test whether the channel works for you before committing.
- The unlimited plan's advertised per-note rate assumes a volume most small teams will never hit; below about 560 notes a month it is the wrong plan and the credit blocks are better.
- Integration coverage is thinner than Handwrytten's: Salesforce natively, everything else through Zapier or the API. There is no first-party HubSpot or Shopify connector published on the integrations page.
- No gift catalog, no recipient choice, no spend controls, and no email-first sending, so it cannot serve as a governed gifting program and cannot reach anyone whose address you lack.
- Postage at $0.82 per card is a large hidden multiplier on the advertised rates, and at high volume it exceeds the cost of the handwriting itself.
- No published SOC 2, trust center, or data processing agreement, which is awkward given you are uploading customer names and home addresses.
- International sending is not part of the published rate card, so anything outside the United States needs a conversation rather than a checkout.

## Comparisons

- **Simply Noted vs Handwrytten**: The two are close cousins, both Arizona robotics companies writing with real pens. Handwrytten sells single cards at $3.75 with no commitment and has a much deeper native integration list including HubSpot and Shopify. Simply Noted requires a 100-card minimum but its volume pricing falls faster and its $497 unlimited plan has no equivalent. Start with Handwrytten to find out whether handwritten mail works for you; move to Simply Noted once you are sending several hundred a month and want the rate cut in half.
- **Simply Noted vs Scribeless**: Scribeless quotes one all-in per-card price with domestic postage included and runs production in North America, the UK, France, and Germany. Simply Noted quotes handwriting and postage separately and prints only in Arizona, but goes considerably cheaper at high domestic volume and offers the flat-rate unlimited plan. Choose Scribeless for European or multi-country campaigns and for the simplicity of one number per piece; choose Simply Noted for US-only sending above a few thousand cards.
- **Simply Noted vs Lob**: Lob is an API-first direct mail platform for programmatic postcards, letters, and checks, free up to 6,000 pieces a year and under a dollar a postcard. Simply Noted is a handwriting operation where the point is that the piece looks personal. If you are mailing transactional notices or high-volume offers and the design is machine-printed anyway, Lob is far cheaper. If the whole value of the send is that it does not look machine-printed, Lob cannot do it and Simply Noted can.

## Implementation

- Setup time: A day or two for a first campaign. Buying credits and uploading a CSV is immediate; custom card design and handwriting selection add a short proofing cycle. Salesforce or Zapier automation takes a few hours of configuration.
- Learning curve: Low on the tooling and moderate on the strategy. The dashboard is straightforward. The real work is deciding message, timing, and volume tier, and resisting the temptation to write marketing copy on a card that only works because it does not read like marketing.
- Onboarding: Self-serve through the pricing page for credit blocks and the unlimited plan. Free samples are strongly worth requesting before buying a block, since the entire premise is that the handwriting is convincing and that is not judgeable from a screenshot.
- Migration: Moving from another handwriting vendor is a CSV export and a card redesign, nothing more. Moving from a gifting platform is harder, because Simply Noted needs full mailing addresses and choice-link platforms collect those from the recipient at redemption rather than handing you a usable address file. Check your address coverage first. Existing prepaid credits at a previous vendor are not transferable.

## Platform, API & security

- Platforms: Web dashboard, REST API, Zapier
- API: Documented API covering the full feature set, plus webhook automations. The unlimited plan lists CRM, API, Zapier, and webhook automations as included rather than as a paid tier.
- Compliance: Standard US commercial mail handling, No SOC 2 or ISO certification advertised publicly
- Data residency: US production and operations in Phoenix, Arizona.
- SSO: Not advertised.
- Security notes: You are uploading customer names and residential mailing addresses to a US vendor for physical fulfilment. No trust center, SOC 2 report, or standard data processing addendum is published on the marketing site, which is a question to put to the company directly if you handle regulated or health-adjacent lists.

## Support

- Channels: Email support, Phone support, In-app help
- Documentation: Product help pages, API documentation, and integration guides for Salesforce and Zapier.
- Community: No formal user community; the founder is a frequent podcast guest on the handwritten mail channel.

## Company

- Founded: 2018
- Founders: Rick Elmore
- Headquarters: Phoenix, Arizona, United States
- Ownership: Bootstrapped, founder-owned
- Employees: Not disclosed; privately held with an in-house robotics production floor
- Funding: None. The company states it has taken no outside investment and has scaled past $10 million in revenue entirely on its own cash, which is unusual in a category otherwise populated by venture-backed platforms.

Timeline:

- 2018: Founded by Rick Elmore in Arizona, building on a handwriting robot prototype developed during an MBA at the University of Arizona after a handwritten note campaign produced roughly $300,000 in medical device sales.
- 2020: Robotics fleet and production automation scale up, with patents filed on the pen-holding and paper-handling mechanisms.
- 2022: Salesforce, Zapier, and API integrations ship, moving the product from a bulk mailing service to something triggerable from a CRM.
- 2024: Customer base passes 10,000 businesses, with named brands including Marriott, Ford, Tesla, Edward Jones, and the NCAA cited by the company.
- 2025: Flat-rate unlimited plan launches at $497 per month, undercutting per-card pricing across the category for high-volume senders.
- 2026: Runs a reported fleet of around 225 machines with nine patents, still fully bootstrapped and past $10 million in revenue.

## Integrations

Salesforce (including Process Builder automation), Zapier (2,500-plus applications), REST API, Webhooks, CSV bulk upload

## FAQ

### What is Simply Noted?

Simply Noted is a handwritten mail automation company in Phoenix, Arizona. It runs a fleet of roughly 225 purpose-built robots that press real ballpoint pens into card stock to write notes and address envelopes, then mails them. You buy prepaid card credits at published volume rates or subscribe to a flat-rate unlimited plan at $497 a month.

### Is it real handwriting or a printed font?

It is a real ballpoint pen pressed into paper by a machine, not a printed handwriting typeface. The company holds nine patents on the robotics, which were designed from scratch rather than adapted from plotters. It is not a human hand, but the ink indents the card and smudges, which is the test recipients apply without thinking about it.

### How much does Simply Noted actually cost per card?

Folded note cards are $2.76 each at 100 credits, $2.11 at 500, $1.79 at 1,000, $1.48 at 5,000, $1.15 at 10,000, $1.00 at 25,000, and $0.84 at 50,000. Postage is $0.82 per card on top at First-Class rates. So 100 cards is $358 all in, or $3.58 each. Jumbo postcards run roughly twenty cents cheaper per piece at every tier.

### Is the $497 unlimited plan worth it?

Only above roughly 560 notes a month, which is where the advertised $0.89 effective rate comes from. At 200 notes a month you are paying about $2.49 a card before postage, worse than simply buying a 1,000-credit block. Above 1,000 notes a month it is the cheapest option in the category by a wide margin, and it includes the API, CRM, Zapier, and webhook automations.

### What does a $25 gift cost through Simply Noted?

Simply Noted does not sell gifts, so the honest comparison is a card plus a gift card you buy yourself. At the 500-credit tier that is $2.11 for the handwriting, $0.82 for postage, and $25.00 of face value, roughly $27.93 all in. There is no platform fee and nobody takes a cut of the gift value, which is the opposite of how gifting platforms make their margin. The tradeoff is that sourcing and inserting the gift is your job.

### Can I send a note without the recipient's mailing address?

No. Simply Noted needs a full postal address before it can write the envelope. Choice-based gifting platforms such as Goody and Loop and Tie solve this by sending a link to an email address and collecting the shipping address from the recipient at redemption. If your address coverage is poor, that is a reason to look at those platforms instead of, or alongside, this one.

### Can a card be triggered from my CRM?

Yes. There is a native Salesforce integration that automates sends from customer activity using Process Builder, a Zapier connector reaching 2,500-plus applications, a documented API, and webhooks. In practice a closed-won deal, a first purchase, or a support resolution can put a handwritten card in the mail with nobody involved.

### How do I attribute a card back to pipeline?

Every card can carry a trackable QR code on every plan, and that scan is the only clean first-party signal a piece of paper produces. Combine it with mail tracking for the delivery date and CRM activity logging through the connectors, then compare response rates against a held-out control group. There is no acceptance or redemption event as there is with a gift link, so the measurement is coarser.

### Do credits expire?

Yes, after twelve months. That is more generous than most prepaid credit models, but it is still a clock on money you have already spent, so buy the tier that matches a realistic annual volume rather than the tier with the attractive headline rate.

### Will a card cause a problem with the recipient's gift policy?

A card by itself essentially never does, which is a real advantage of the note channel over gifting. Enclosures are the risk: gift cards are treated as cash equivalents under most corporate policies and are commonly banned outright in financial services, healthcare procurement, and the public sector. If your buyers work under those rules, send the note without an enclosure and the compliance question disappears.

### Does Simply Noted send internationally?

The published rate card and the $0.82 postage figure are built around US First-Class mail, and international sending is not part of the self-serve pricing. For campaigns aimed at Europe or Asia you will need to talk to the company, or use a vendor such as Scribeless that operates production facilities outside the United States.

### Who owns Simply Noted?

It is founder-owned and fully bootstrapped. Rick Elmore, a former NFL draft pick turned medical device salesperson, founded it in 2018 and has taken no outside investment while scaling past $10 million in revenue. That independence is worth something in a category where several competitors have been absorbed into larger platforms.

## Editorial verdict

Simply Noted is what you buy when you have already proved handwritten mail works and now want the cost per touch driven into the ground. The robotics are genuinely good, the rate card is published in full down to the postage line, and the $497 flat-rate unlimited plan is the most aggressive pricing anywhere in this category above about 560 notes a month. It is not a starter product: the 100-card minimum at $358 makes a cheap experiment impossible, and the unlimited plan is bad value at low volume. It is also not a gifting platform, so if your real problem is that you do not have addresses or you need spend approvals, this solves neither. For a high-volume US sales, hospitality, or franchise operation with addresses in hand and a CRM to trigger from, it is the best-priced serious option on the board.

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Source: SaaSTracker (https://saastracker.org), an independent editorial project. This profile is compiled from public information, carries no peer reviews or paid placement, and was last reviewed 2026-08-22. Awards are judged on published criteria: https://saastracker.org/methodology