The best ways to send a digital letter in 2026

A letter that arrives sealed on their phone, not a long text. Seven services do it, in different ways and at different prices. We make one of them, so we’ve said where the others win.

By Jake Powney · Updated 18 October 2026

A brown paper envelope tied with string, open, with a letter to Nan beginning “You said you’d never read a letter on a phone”

A digital letter is a letter that arrives on someone’s screen and still behaves like a letter: sealed, with their name on it, opened rather than scrolled past. A handful of services do that now, and they’re surprisingly different. Some are for a love letter with a song behind it, one is for pen pals you’ve never met, one is for writing to yourself. Here’s each one, what it costs, and who it suits.

We make Stampgoose, so read this knowing that. Where another one is the better pick, we’ve said so, because for some of these jobs it is.

At a glance

	Best for	What they get	Photos and video	Price
Stampgoose	One letter that matters, with room for more	A sealed envelope with their name on it: the letter, photo postcards and a video, by link	Up to ten pieces, and a video of up to 1 GB	$5.99 for the whole envelope, paid once
LetterHugs	A decorated letter or card	A letter on a template, with stickers and handwritten fonts, by email or link	Pictures, in the design	$2.99 a letter, $2.49 a card, $1.99 a postcard
2luv	A love letter with a song	An envelope that opens into “moments”: the letter, your photos, your song, your places	Photos and music	One payment per letter, shown in your currency
Letters by Heart	A short love note, free	An animated envelope with your words inside, by link	None in the letter	Free up to 100 characters; a one-off plan beyond that
Wax & Paper	Writing on an iPhone, for the ritual	Paper, ink and a wax seal with your initial, by link; they can write back	None	Free app
OpenWhen	A set of letters for different days	A collection of “open when” letters to open one at a time	None	Account needed; pricing not shown on its site
FutureMe	A letter to yourself	An email, on a date years away	None	Free
Slowly	Pen pals you haven’t met	Letters that take hours or days to arrive, from strangers matched to you	None by default	Free app

Prices are each service’s own, in the currency it showed us, on 18 October 2026. They move, so look again on the day.

What to look for

Three things separate a letter from a long message, and the services differ on all three.

How it arrives. As an envelope with their name on it, or as an email with your first line in the preview. Most of these send a link, so the envelope is the first thing they see.
What it can hold. Just words, or words with the photos and the minute of you talking. The free ones are mostly words.
How long it lasts. Whether the link still opens next year. A letter is something you go back to.

Stampgoose: for one letter that matters

An envelope with their name on the front, sent as one link by text, WhatsApp or email. They tap the wax seal, the flap lifts, and inside is your letter, at whatever length it takes, with your photos as postcards and a video of you saying it, up to ten pieces in the order you choose. It can stay sealed until a date and time, with a countdown on the front, and a passphrase if it’s only for them. No app, no account for either of you, and the letters and photos are kept for good. $5.99 for the whole envelope, whatever goes in, paid once.

Pick it if it’s one person and it has to land properly: a birthday far away, an anniversary, a thank you, the thing you’ve never said out loud.
Look elsewhere if you want a song playing behind it, or a free note of a line or two.

LetterHugs: for a decorated letter or card

An editor that feels like scrapbooking: templates for birthdays, thanks and love, stickers, stamps and handwritten fonts, and your pictures dropped in. It arrives by email or a private link, with an animated envelope, and nobody needs an account. Drafts are free and you pay when you send: $2.99 for a letter, $2.49 for a card, $1.99 for a postcard.

Pick it if you want to decorate as much as write, and you like a template to start from.
Look elsewhere if you want to send a video, or to seal it until a date.

2luv: for a love letter with a song

Built for couples. The envelope opens into a row of “moments” you fill in: the letter, what you love about them, your story, your photos, your song, your places, your date. Empty ones don’t show. It goes by link or a QR code you can print, can take a password, and you can edit it after sending. There are seasonal versions too, a Halloween hotel, a birthday party with candles to blow out, a Christmas room. Building and previewing is free; you pay once to unlock it, in your own currency, so check the price on the site. It says more than 300,000 people have made one.

Pick it if it’s romantic, you have the photos and the song, and you want the fireworks.
Look elsewhere if it’s for your gran, your brother or a colleague: everything about it is built for a partner.

Letters by Heart: for a short love note, free

The simplest of the lot. You write, it wraps your words in an animated envelope, you share the link. Up to 100 characters is free, which is a line or two; anything longer needs its one-off plan. It’s a love-letter site, down to the examples, and it sells photo jigsaws on the side.

Pick it if you want a free, pretty way to send one line to someone you love.
Look elsewhere if you’ve got more than a line to say, or anything to show them.

AIskyla does a similar free envelope, with a photo and a song behind it, and sends a link you keep until the moment you want to share it.

Wax & Paper: for the ritual, on an iPhone

An app called Write A Letter, and it means it: five papers, seven inks, typefaces from typewriter to handwriting, then you fold the page into an envelope and press a wax seal with your initial. It goes as a private link, they break the seal, and they can write back the same way. You can also date a letter a month, six months or a year ahead and it waits. No account, no ads, and free, though it’s iPhone and iPad only, and new enough that it had no reviews when we looked.

Pick it if you write on your phone and you like the ceremony as much as the sending.
Look elsewhere if you’re on Android or a computer, or you want photos and video in it.

OpenWhen: for a set of letters to open on different days

Open-when letters are a bundle: open when you can’t sleep, open when you miss me, open when it’s been a bad day. OpenWhen makes a collection of them as one gift, each opened on its own. You need an account to make one, and its site didn’t show a price when we looked.

Pick it if you’re sending a whole set to someone going away.
Look elsewhere if it’s one letter. A Stampgoose envelope can hold several letters with their own “open when” headings, if you’d rather keep them together.

If you’re writing them, forty open when letter ideas has the headings and what to put under each.

FutureMe: for a letter to yourself

Not a letter to someone else at all. You write to your future self, pick a date a year or five years away, and it arrives by email on the day. It’s free, it’s been going for twenty years, and you can read other people’s public letters for the nerve to write your own. It’s an email when it lands, with everything that means.

Pick it if the letter is for you, and you want it out of sight until then.
Look elsewhere if it’s for anyone else, or you want it to arrive as more than an email.

What to put in one is in how to write a letter to your future self.

Slowly: for pen pals you haven’t met

A pen-pal app, and a big one: it’s been downloaded more than ten million times. It matches you with strangers by language and interests, and the letters take time to arrive, hours or days depending on how far apart you live, so nobody fires off one-line replies. You collect stamps along the way. It’s free, with a nickname and an avatar and no photos of you.

Pick it if you want to write letters, and you don’t yet have anyone to write them to.
Look elsewhere if you know exactly who it’s for.

Or just send the words

An email or a long WhatsApp carries the same sentences for nothing, and for plenty of things that’s right. What it can’t do is arrive as anything but a message, between a parcel update and the group chat, with your first line already showing. It can’t wait, sealed, for a birthday morning, and it isn’t kept anywhere they’ll find it again. If the words are the whole point and the moment doesn’t matter, send the words. If the moment matters, send a letter.

Which one to pick

One letter, done properly, maybe with photos and a video: Stampgoose.
A decorated letter or card from a template: LetterHugs.
A love letter with your song and your photos: 2luv.
A free line or two in an envelope: Letters by Heart, or AIskyla.
Paper and ink and a wax seal, on an iPhone: Wax & Paper.
A set of open-when letters: OpenWhen, or several letters in one envelope.
A letter to yourself: FutureMe.
Someone to write to: Slowly.

Where to find them: LetterHugs, 2luv, Letters by Heart, AIskyla, Wax & Paper, OpenWhen, FutureMe and Slowly. Stampgoose’s own page for the job is the digital letter, and the photos and video travel as a digital postcard and a video message. For designed ecards rather than letters, see the best ecard sites.

Questions people ask

What is the best way to send a digital letter?

For one letter that should feel like a letter, a sealed-envelope service: Stampgoose, LetterHugs or Wax & Paper. For a love letter with photos and a song, 2luv or Letters by Heart. For a set of letters to open on different days, OpenWhen. For a letter to yourself, FutureMe. For pen pals you haven’t met, Slowly.

Can I send a digital letter for free?

Yes. Letters by Heart sends a letter of up to 100 characters free, AIskyla and FutureMe are free, and Wax & Paper is a free app. The paid ones, Stampgoose, LetterHugs and 2luv, charge once per letter and let you write as much as you like, with photos and video alongside.

How is a digital letter different from an email?

An email arrives as an email, between a parcel update and a newsletter, with your first line in the preview. A digital letter arrives as an envelope with their name on it, is opened rather than read, can wait sealed until a date, and is still there to reread next year.

Can a digital letter have a video in it?

On some. A Stampgoose envelope holds a video of up to 1 GB alongside the letter and photos. 2luv and Letters by Heart take photos and music. LetterHugs, Wax & Paper and OpenWhen are for the written letter, with pictures on LetterHugs.

Not sending one today?

We’ll remind you before Diwali and Christmas: a few emails a year, a week or so before the days people send envelopes for. Nothing else, and one click stops them.