Planning an upcoming party? Online invitations are a great choice for so many reasons. Whether you’re saving paper, lack physical addresses for your guests, or want to save time by getting it done online — or you’re simply keeping the budget down! — you may be wondering about popular sites like Evite vs Paperless Post vs Punchbowl vs Greenvelope. In this guide, we discuss the pros and cons of each so you can see what’s available and how to make the best choice for your upcoming event invitations.
Evite
Evite is considered the pioneer of electronic invitations. Founded in 1998, it is nearly a decade older than Paperless Post, Punchbowl, and Greenvelope. As one of the original online invitation platforms, it has also experienced the most change as new designs and technologies hit the market. Today, Evite is known for online invitation design and sending, as well as managing guest lists to plan social events. They offer several unique features that set them apart from other invitation platforms.
Advantages
All four companies compared in this article — Evite, Paperless Post, Punchbowl and Greenvelope — share some, if not many, features. Evite allows you to send invites via email, text, or social media, which all the other platforms also include. Evite includes customizable fonts, colors, and layout of your invitation; and the option to fully upload your own design if you don’t want to use a template — all great features to have when working on a digital invitation.
Evite offers different features based on three tiers: free, Premium, and Pro (all the advantages of Premium with the ability to send unlimited invites/events). We’ll discuss pricing later in this article, but it’s helpful to note that with Premium, you have control over your guest list with the ability to send automated reminders, see when guests have viewed your invite, and put guests into categories for better organization. You can send updates about the event, and when the party is over, you can send thank you notes for free (a feature also shared by other companies), and you can track RSVPs plus connect gift registries.
While many of Evite’s most advantageous features are shared by the other platforms, there are some things that make it a great option for your next event. What makes Evite unique starts with its longevity. As one of the longest standing digital invitation sites, most, if not all of your guests will recognize it or know how to access their invitation. Another thing that makes Evite different is that many of the invitation designs include animation, setting it apart from Punchbowl and Greenvelope. From fun, flashy birthday invitations to elegant animation on a baby shower invite, the website offers plenty of free and paid options. Evite is also the only platform to offer video as part of your invitation. You can upload up to 3 minutes of video to make your invitation extra special — and extra personal.
After the event, you can also add photos of the party to share with guests, a fun feature that is also a brilliant technique to keep customers coming back to Evite after the party is over. One other unique feature is the ability to add a co-host to your invitation, so you can share party planning, messaging, and tracking RSVPs with someone else.
Other fun add-ons for your Evite invitation include a poll for your guests, a “What to Bring” list, and even gift suggestions and donation options.
Drawbacks
While the Evite website is clean and simple to use, it can be difficult to find details about features and pricing options without first creating a login. This could be a tactic to get more people to join their platform, but it may be a deterrent for those simply exploring their options who aren’t ready to commit to one digital invitation platform. What we did discover is that Evite’s web pages for both their Premium options and Evite Pro are clearer and more detailed. However, finding these pages from their original site is a mission. The good news is, Evite offers and app, both in the App Store and Google Play, which mitigates some of these desktop website snafus.
The Premium and Pro pages of the site are easier to navigate (and the content is very clear), but there are multiple reviews from long-time users who are frustrated. Customer service can be slow to respond, emails cannot be edited, and multiple customers complain of “glitches” where evites don’t send and they have to pay again to resend.
Some customers also complain that evite emails end up in recipients’ spam folders. And while ads in the Evite emails can be misleading to guests, you can purchase ad-free invitations through the Premium and Evite Pro options, much like on other platforms.
Paperless Post
Paperless Post, founded in 2008, is one of the first electronic invitation platforms that sought to offer unique and elegant designs — and an experience akin to opening a real printed and mailed invitation. If you’ve ever been sent a Paperless Post, then you likely enjoyed the animation of opening the envelope to reveal the beautifully designed invitation inside. One of the differentiators from other online invitation platforms is their printed designs through Paper Source and their partnerships with major stationary designers and fashion icons.
Advantages
Like we shared above, Paperless Post has very similar advantages as the other platforms. You can send your invitations via email or text, create custom designs, track RSVPs, and message guests. But there are also a few features that are unique to Paperless Post.
In 2018, Paperless Post introduced Flyers, a tech-savvy alternative to their classic (read: traditional) invitations. Flyers are invitations that are much more customizable, include plenty of animations, and look great sent via text message. They’re an informal option for easy-going get togethers.
Also, while Paperless Post isn’t unique in offering text invites, their text options are superior to those of Evite and Punchbowl. They take up the entire phone screen to look like a real invitation over SMS (vs a plain text SMS with a link to the invite). This is great for the party organizer who loves the classic look of Paperless Post invitations but also loves the ease of text.
As we mentioned earlier, another fun feature of Paperless Post is that they also partner with iconic artists who are unique to their company, such as Kate Spade, Rifle Paper, Anthropologie, and Oscar de la Renta, among other designers. On top of cute designs, they offer tons of customizations to make each design your own. If you’re planning a wedding, the Paperless Post features are especially beneficial. You can send a digital Save the Date with a map, gift registry link, and even highlight local accommodation. Then, print the formal invitation and get the best of both the digital and classic invitation world.
Finally, both the Paperless Post website and the app are as well designed as their invitations — clean, beautiful, and easy to use. Their designs appeal to a specific style of event: a combination of elegant, fun, and modern, with a slightly traditional twist.
Drawbacks
One drawback that customers express regarding Paperless Post is the cost. Another downside to the service is that they use a coin system that skews the actual monetary cost — and is somewhat confusing, especially for the less tech-savvy crowd. The coin system can be cumbersome for some users. For example, each premium feature costs a certain number of coins per invitation. If your invitation requires 5 coins per guest and you have 20 guests, it will cost 100 coins (or $22).
To purchase a printed version of your invitations, you must go through Paper Source, which can also be a bit pricey. You can’t see the names of plus ones, which can make planning a bit difficult. On the free flyers, you must remove the extras and uncheck “premium” to make sure it’s free. Premium is the default, which can catch customers off guard. You can include video with the flyers, just not with the classic card invitations. And while Paperless Post allows you to gather information from guests (such as addresses), they don’t include the “potluck” or “what to bring” feature that is prominent with Evite and Punchbowl.
Punchbowl
Punchbowl was originally called MyPunchbowl and was a free site for end-to-end party planning. Started in 2007, it was created in the same era as Paperless Post and Greenvelope. Punchbowl grew to become the original provider of Disney characters for online invitations, and added more collaborations with iconic kid’s character companies like Nickelodeon, Sanrio, and many more.
Most recently, Punchbowl acquired Memento, a video recording and shared album platform where people can also make group videos and collaborate memories.
Advantages
Punchbowl sets itself apart as a great resource for family friendly gatherings and fun, casual events. Because it was once a standalone party planning site, Punchbowl is also a great resource for party ideas and favors.
Punchbowl, like Greenvelope, helps support causes focused on sustainability, so they’re well-liked by people who care about using electronic invitations as a means to support sustainability and climate change.
By far the thing that stands out the most about Punchbowl are their great options for kids’ parties and events. Fun characters such as Peppa Pig, Trolls, Spiderman, and Minions make planning a themed party incredibly easy.
Like the other platforms, Punchbowl invitations can be delivered by text or email (or link via social). They also include an app in both the App Store and Google Play — fantastic for people on the go. Organizers can include a custom message to guests, or even use the Potluck tool to ask guests to bring food to the gathering! The best way to describe Punchbowl is the e-invitation site that keeps things simple. The designs, process, and tools all make sending digital invitations simple and fast, so you can get to the fun part of planning and prepping for your event.
Drawbacks
Some drawbacks about Punchbowl include the presence of ads on the invitations, even with the free trial — customers must upgrade to the Platinum plan to have them removed. Also, their texts can look like spam links (as opposed to the full-frame invitation or graphic that appears with other platforms), which can make it confusing for recipients or even cause them to delete the text.
While Punchbowl’s RSVP tracking and messaging features may not be as robust as some of the other platforms, they offer a competitive invitation service for a fraction of the cost. Platinum membership — their highest tier — is only $15.99/month when not on sale, and it allows you to send invitations for up to 500 guests per event. All in all, many customers find the easy-to-use service a great choice for quickly organizing events for family and friends.
Greenvelope
Greenvelope is a Seattle-based company founded in 2008 that is focused on helping people go paperless to preserve the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest. They focus on invitations that have a realistic opening experience and the same elegant “feel” as a classic, paper invitation. Greenvelope specializes in online invitations and RSVP tracking, making the platform a great resource for large events.
Advantages
Greenvelope is lauded for its tracking and planning features. You can easily import guest lists, send surveys, message guests, and more with Greenvelope. The platform also offers email address verification, so you can avoid the issue of double paying and still have the emails end up in junk.
Greenvelope partners with artists across the globe, so you can find beautiful and unique designs. This gives the sense of exclusive designs and a more specialty appeal for your event. Greenvelope also offers a free trial that you can use for an unlimited amount of time with limited features. However, their paid plans offer the bulk of the benefits that are part of the Greenvelope experience.
There are no ads on Greenvelope. They offer device support, and are focused on user experience so you can customize your digital invitations, add registries and more. Custom designs usually come with added fees.
Possibly the coolest thing about Greenvelope is the sustainability causes they support, which include the National Park Foundation, National Forest Foundation, Mountains to Sound and 1% for the Planet. They also have a bus program and plant trees. Greenvelope has overall really good reviews, and they’ve won some awards as well.
Drawbacks
One of the biggest drawbacks to Greenvelope is the cost. It is more expensive (after the free trial) than other platforms but with the big cost comes some big benefits. Greenvelope offers a wide array of services beneficial for larger events, as opposed to family-focused events. The platform is great for the corporate event or wedding where guests need to specify meal options, song requests, and where the organizer needs the best tools available to track RSVPs for a large number of people.
With the pricing issues come a few other sticking points for Greenvelope users. Some people do not like that Greenvelope prices per person — rather than per email. If you send an email invitation that includes five guests but only one email address, you get charged for five guests. Also, if you resend any invites, it’s an additional cost.
Evite vs Paperless vs Punchbowl
Now that we’ve seen the pros and cons of each electronic invitation platform, let’s compare these four services with specific aspects of each.
Features
Evite, Paperless Post, Punchbowl and Greenvelope are all very similar in their features and offer many of the same benefits for users. However, there are a few key differences:
- Evite offers users the ability to send cryptocurrency gifts. They also include animated invitations and video invites, great options for your events with family and friends.
- Paperless Post lets you order matching party supplies and get printed invitations. They partner with iconic artists and designers so you can have amazingly unique and upscale invites. All invitations have animated envelope opening, and text invites take up the recipients’ screen versus making them click on a link. This is a great choice for weddings and more formal events.
- Punchbowl offers party favors and photo/video sharing services. They also partner with artists, and they’re the only one to offer iconic kids’ characters for invitations (like Disney, Sanrio etc). An incredible choice for children’s parties and family events.
- Greenvelope also includes animated envelope opening to mimic the real thing. They partner with companies like the National Park Service and are the most committed to sustainability. They have the most robust backend tools for organizing and managing for large events, making them a great choice for corporate events.
User friendliness
Which website is more user-friendly and makes it easiest to use the service? According to customer feedback, the best sites for user friendliness are Greenvelope and Punchbowl.
Greenvelope has amazing customer reviews overall, though they’re more focused on elegant invitations for large events rather than smaller, informal events. Their website is up to date and easy to use and includes all the information a customer needs in order to compare Greenvelope services and make an informed purchase.
Punchbowl’s founders are user interface experts, so the Punchbowl website ranks at the top for user experience. They still have some bugs to work out in their app, but they have a high number of positive customer reviews online than other services.
Paperless Post comes in third, as many customers seem to have trouble figuring out how to design invitations on their site — not to mention, the coin system is unnecessarily confusing. However, their customer service team strives to answer people promptly, making the user experience a tad bit better with one-on-one support.
Evite comes in last, because a quick online search will tell you that more customers have negative experiences with Evite than the other websites — the interface is outdated, and it is very difficult to find the info you need all in one place. However, once you find their Premium and Evite Pro pages, it is easy to see that their upgrading their website experience.
Design Library & Flexibility
Every great electronic invitation website and app comes with its version of a design library. Finding the one you like best depends on what style of invitation you’re looking for and what type of event you’re organizing.
Evite, Paperless Post, Puchbowl, and Greenvelope all offer designs for nearly every imaginable event and holiday, and they all allow for custom designs and uploads (with the paid versions, of course). So which design library is best? It may come down to how much you’re willing to pay.
All libraries offer many free options (or free trials) that would do the trick for your family birthday party or Superbowl gathering. However, if you’re looking for higher-quality — or more unique — options, then you may need to splurge for the paid versions. Each paid option offers a wider array of designs as well as the flexibility to send out invitations to a larger number of guests.
For some fun, printable options, Paperless Post offers matching party supplies and printed versions of their invitations, which the others do not. Paperless Post also offers around 1,000 free customizable invitation templates.
Let’s look more at use cases to see which library would best suit your situation.
Use Cases
If you want household-name designer invitations — and the ability to send both digital and print versions — pick Paperless Post. Evite and Greenvelope also partner with artists, but not as many well-known fashion names or stationery designers. Paperless Post also offers great event planning tools to help ease the stress of managing your guest list.
For fan favorite, iconic kids’ characters, go with Punchbowl, which has characters from Disney and more for all ages.
If you want unique invitations designed by a variety of global artists, choose Greenvelope. They also allow for maps to be included, as well as external links and survey questions for guests.
For ease of use and familiarity, choose Evite. As the longest standing platform of the four, more of your guests will know how to RSVP and access event details. Evite also offers a wide range of options for any event from a graduation party to your office holiday event.
Emailing
Evite, Punchbowl, Paperless Post, and Greenvelope are fairly comparable when it comes to email list management. All four platforms allow you to manage your guests with RSVP tracking and the ability to message guests with updates.
They also all include polling, where you can create questions for your guests to answer that will help with party planning. For example, meal choices or dietary restrictions, song requests, and more.
Greenvelope and Paperless Post also include easy-to-use map features so guests can easily see where the event is taking place. Other specialty features include links to a registry, nearby accommodation, or helpful resources.
Of all the platforms, Evite has many complaints from customers who say emails weren’t delivered or ended up in spam folders. When they tried to resend or edit email addresses, they got charged to resend the emails.
Cost
Some of the digital invitation platforms hide their pricing well, and you’ll likely have to get into designing your invites before you get an accurate price. However, here is what we do know about invitation prices.
Evite’s Premium pricing (which includes the ability to disable ads) starts at $15.99 for their small package for up to 15 guests and maxes out at the extra-large package (up to 750 guests) for $79.99. Then there is Evite Pro, a yearly subscription for $249.99 that offers all the bells and whistles of the premium membership, plus an entire platform to host virtual events. Evite Pro is geared mostly toward businesses and non-profits, giving corporations the ability to invite up to 2,500 guests, add donation options, and even include a custom business logo on the invitation.
Paperless Post is the only platform that uses “coin packages” instead of straightforward pricing. The price per coin varies depending on the package size. There are 5 package options with 25 coins for $12 to 1,000 coins for $115. The coins are non-refundable, but they stay in your account for up to 5 years to be used on later purchases (free coins last one year). The coin system is fairly confusing, as you don’t know how many you need prior to designing your invitation and adding your guest list. This is very challenging for the budget-conscious party planner.
Punchbowl pricing is by far the most straightforward. The site offers subscription plans of Platinum, Premium, and Plus, and their yearly plans are non-refundable. The cheapest plan is Plus, which is $7.99/month (aside from sales — right now it’s $3.99/month). This gives you up to 50 guests per event. The only way you can get ad-free invites is with Punchbowl’s Platinum “Remove Advertising” plan, which is $15.99/month (currently on sale for $7.99/month) that includes 500 guests per event.
Greenvelope pricing is based on the number of guests — not invitations, but actual invited individuals. This means that one invitation for a family of five is charged as five guests. They have single mailing plans for your one-off event that range from $19 for up to 20 guests, all the way up to $3,799 for up to 25,000 guests. They also have plans for unlimited mailings, starting at $125/year for up to 50 people and ranging up to $4,235/year for up to 12,500 people.
Conclusion
Depending on what you’re celebrating, finding a good service for digital invitations is tricky! We hope that our review of these platforms helps you discover which invitation service best fits your needs and expectations for your next event.
Evite, Paperless Post, Punchbowl, and Greenvelope each have unique aspects that set them apart from the others. One may be better for you depending on your needs and purposes. And perhaps you’ll try them all at one point or another! There really is something out there for almost every kind of event, invite, and shindig you can dream up.
In short: if you’re looking for the perfect theme for your child’s birthday party, choose Punchbowl; if you want gorgeous designer invitations, choose Paperless Post; if you want to support places like the National Park Service and some unique indie designers, choose Greenvelope; for the most familiar service or best free tools, try Evite; and if planning a corporate event is on your radar, Greenvelope and Evite Pro have the most robust tools for your needs. And finally, if budget is important to you, you can also choose the one that has the pricing options that makes the most sense for your event.
There are so many options out there, so have fun exploring, creating, designing, and party planning!