Pay per card. No subscriptions.
Build your card for free. You pick how to send it — with an ad or without.
Free
$0
- ✓Browse every card design
- ✓Write your own message
- ✓Photo upload
- ✓Send via email or text
- ●30–90 second ad before sending
Express
$1.50
- ✓Everything in Free
- ✓No ads, send right away
- ✓Schedule delivery for later
- ✓“Opened” notification
- ✓Attach a gift link
What “free” actually means here
A lot of greeting-card sites use the word “free.” Most of them mean a free trial that quietly turns into a $5/month subscription, or free to design but $3 to send, or a free first card if you hand over a credit card up front.
Free on Away Notes means free. No sign-up, no credit card on file, no trial that converts. Pick a card, write a message, watch a short ad, send it. That's the whole free flow. The $1.50 Express option is there if you don't want to watch the ad — it's never a requirement.
Why $1.50?
We landed on $1.50 because it's less than a stamp ($0.73) plus the gas to drive to a CVS, but it's enough to cover the Stripe processing fee (~$0.30), the SMS or email delivery cost, the hosting cost, and a small contribution to keeping the lights on while we add more cards and features.
A subscription model would let us charge less per card on paper, but people don't send cards on a schedule. They send them when they're needed. Pay-per-card matches that. You pay when you use it. Nothing auto-renews.
Pricing questions
Why is the free version ad-supported?
Sending a card costs real money on our end. Stripe takes a cut even on $1.50. Email and SMS delivery cost a few cents per send. Hosting costs scale with traffic. The ad pays for the free version. It's the same model as podcasts, free YouTube, and most journalism on the internet.
What does the $1.50 Express option pay for?
Three things. First, it skips the ad — you go from card-builder to send in about fifteen seconds. Second, it unlocks features the free version doesn't have: open notifications, scheduled delivery, gift attachments. Third, a small chunk of it covers the Stripe processing fee, which is around 30 cents per transaction.
Is there a subscription?
No. Each card is a separate transaction. We don't have monthly plans, annual plans, premium tiers, or auto-renewing memberships. If you don't send a card for a year, you owe us nothing.
Can I get a refund if the card doesn't deliver?
Yes. If a card fails to deliver because of a bug on our end, email hello@awaynotes.com and we'll refund the $1.50 or resend the card. If the card delivered to spam or the recipient's carrier filtered it, we'll help troubleshoot, but those cases are usually fixable without a refund.
Do you accept Apple Pay, Google Pay, or PayPal?
We accept all major credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Link (Stripe's one-tap checkout). PayPal is not currently supported — it requires a separate integration we haven't prioritized.
What happens to my payment data?
Stripe processes the payment. We never see or store your full card number — only the last four digits and the card type, for receipts. Stripe is the same payment processor used by Amazon, Shopify, and most of the internet's checkout pages.
What about the gift card attachments?
Express senders can attach a gift link to a card — an Amazon affiliate suggestion or a gift card to a relevant store. The gift purchase happens outside Away Notes, on the merchant's site. We earn a small affiliate commission when a recipient buys through the link, at no extra cost to them.
Are there volume discounts?
Not yet, but bulk sending (Christmas cards to 50 family members, wedding thank-yous) is on the roadmap. If you'd use bulk pricing, email hello@awaynotes.com and tell us about your use case — it helps us prioritize.