Paper or digital birth announcement? What each is good for
A digital birth announcement is the quick, cheap way to tell everyone: you can send it on WhatsApp as soon as you are ready after the birth. A paper card costs more and takes longer, and it is the version some people put in an album. You can also send both, and then the real choice is who gets which.
What is a digital birth announcement good for?
A digital birth announcement is an image or a message you send by WhatsApp or email instead of by post, and what it does best is arrive fast. Savemydate, a Dutch site that sells templates for them, writes on its page about digital birth cards that you can send one via WhatsApp almost on the day of the birth, with no address lists, envelopes or postal delays. French Wikipedia's article on the faire-part says the French card is generally printed and posted, and that it sometimes takes the form of a computer file sent by email.
Timbre Naissance, a French blog about birth stamps, adds two more points in its comparison of the two formats: digital creation and sending are free or cheap, and it excels at a fast announcement to people abroad.
The same comparison names the catch. An email or a message on a screen is short-lived, and it will not find a place on a mantelpiece or in a memory box. It adds that it is not unusual today for families to save such announcements in the cloud or print them out themselves. The French-language site Babypoom puts it more bluntly on its page on paper announcements: the digital version soon disappears under the other files you keep in your mailbox or on your computer.
What does a paper birth announcement do that a message cannot?
A paper card gets kept, at least by some of the people who receive it. Babypoom describes what happens when a card arrives by post: some people throw it away, others slip it into a drawer with other precious things, pin it to the fridge (especially when it has a nice photo of the baby), or, the closest ones especially, add it to their albums.
In October 2026 the Dutch parenting site Ouders van Nu gave the question to other parents in its weekly dilemma column. A couple wrote in because they doubted whether to send cards at all. Relatively expensive, they said, and often thrown away quickly. The answers split. One wrote that a few grandparents and relatives value the cards a lot, mainly for their scrapbooks, and that the rest would rather have it digitally. Two had skipped the cards. One family sent an app message instead; another made a digital card, sent it on WhatsApp and wrote that they never regretted it. A fourth called the card a big expense but a memory for life, and worried a child might later think they had not been important enough for one.
A message carries the news on the day; a paper card is the one people can put in an album.
Paper has two costs. Timbre Naissance lists a bigger budget (printing, stamps, envelopes) and longer lead times for printing and the post. What the stamps add up to in the Netherlands, Germany and France is in our guide to birth announcement postage.
Paper vs digital birth announcement at a glance
| Digital | Paper | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free or cheap to make and send | Printing, envelopes and stamps |
| How fast | Can go out almost on the day of the birth | Printing and the post take longer |
| What you need | Phone numbers or email addresses | Postal addresses and stamps |
| Afterwards | Sinks among the other files in a mailbox or on a computer | Kept in a drawer, on the fridge or in an album, or thrown away |
Can you send a digital and a paper birth announcement?
Yes, and a Dutch and a French source both suggest it. Savemydate suggests sending a printed card only to your inner circle and the digital version to everyone else. Timbre Naissance describes parents who post a paper card to their closest family and send a digital one to the wider or international circle, and it suggests announcing digitally at the birth and posting a more carefully made paper card later.
That turns the question into a list. Start with the people from the Ouders van Nu answers: the grandparents and relatives who value a card for their scrapbooks. Add anyone who does not use WhatsApp. Everyone else gets the message as soon as you are ready to send it.
A short paper list needs only a small pack. Our cards come in packs of 10, 25, 50 and 100, with one envelope per card; in October 2026 a pack of 10 costs €19.95 for flat A6 postcards and €29.95 for folded A5 cards, with shipping to you added in the basket. If you are unsure how long your list is, our guide on how many cards to order helps you count households, and our tips on keeping birth cards cover what to do with the cards friends send you.
When your paper list is ready, design the cards in the card editor and pick the pack size there.