Scribeless vs Simply Noted - Which Handwritten Letter Service is the Best Value?

Businesses that send bulk or mass-mail to customers look to handwritten letter service providers.  Such as Scribeless.

When considering a card service, you have multiple choices.  But which service should you use?

Every handwritten provider has unique benefits and pricing.  Let's review the differences between Scribeless and Simply Noted to determine the best value for your business.

Handwriting Quality for Your Cards

Try handwriting something in black ink and then make a photocopy. The photocopy is a near-perfect facsimile of the original.  Yet, you can tell which is which. 

How?

Ink trailing from a ballpoint pen creates varying densities of color. It flows into the paper fibers and can smear if rubbed. The pen’s pressure creates an indentation in the paper surface. These subtle features signal a real handwritten letter.

The photocopy might look like the original but it’s missing all of these features. It's clear to the observer that the photocopy was created by a machine.  Comes off cheap.

Scribeless uses a process similar to photocopying to create their handwritten messages. Generic handwriting fonts are used to simulate written text.  Then the text is laser printed onto the interior of the card. 

The results look a lot like handwriting, but like the photocopy, it’s clear to the observer that it was created by a machine.

Simply Noted uses a convincing technology. 

Instead of laser printers, our fleet of handwriting machines use real ballpoint pens to “handwrite” a message into the card. We vary pressure, line thickness, and spacing to create a realistic handwriting simulation. 

We can even scan a customer’s actual handwriting to complete the illusion. The only way to get closer to your handwriting is to hand write your own cards.  But why put yourself through that pain of writing all your customer appreciation cards!

Typical Turnaround Time

In an ideal world, you have enough time to send all your cards.  However, in the business world time is of the essence.  Clients are impressed with thank you cards within a day or two, not a week or two.  Or, as an eCommerce you cannot delay sending your item just for a thank you note.

Minimizing your turnaround time matters.  Your customers will take notice.

Simply Noted offers a turnaround time of one day, among the fastest in the industry. 

Scribeless is a bit slower. Typical turnarounds range between a day and two days. If speed is critical, Simply Noted is the best option.

Otherwise, either service delivers fairly quickly, and the difference is mostly insignificant.

Card Flexibility

When it comes to creating the perfect customer appreciation card, choice is important. 

Many people don’t want to design their own cards. Instead they need a large selection of stock designs and sizes to pick from. For those interested in a more unique expression, they want a service that gives a range of custom options.

Simply Noted checks all of the boxes. Customers can choose from stock designs, fully custom creations.  Or, they can provide their own. You’re able to get exactly the card you want!

By comparison, Scribeless’s offerings are fairly meager. They don’t offer any stock designs, nor any design service. Customers can choose from a simple logo and text, or they can upload their own artwork. If you aren’t an artist, you’re out of luck.

Ultimately the design comes down to personal preference for the design of their handwritten cards.

Comarketing

Interested in a white-glove system that authentically appears to have been sent from your business?

Co-marketing is when the provider adds their own logo somewhere on the letter or card.  This makes it clear that the card was printed by a service, and not handwritten.  Without the illusion of true handwriting, much of the emotional power is lost.

Simply Noted never prints our logo on your cards. 

We strive for authenticity, so we wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that. 

Scribeless is less concerned with creating a realistic handwriting experience.  They do include their logo on cards they print.

If authenticity is important for your customer appreciation, avoid comarketing logos. 

Gift Cards

Do you want to send a gift card with your card or letter?  Whether you send to a friend, colleague, or business, sending the perfect gift card can increase the impact of your handwritten card.

Simply Noted welcomes this situation and provides gift cards. 

Scribeless does not.

Business Cards and Inserts

Sending your business card with any marketing material is important.  Real estate agents, insurance and service-based companies significantly increase their odds of a call by providing a business card.

Or, you can send other inserts for your clients or potential leads.  Consider sending informational inserts, gift cards, content stuffers and more.

Scribeless allows you to print a letter or card, have it inserted into a printed envelope, and have it mailed. If you’d like to include other collateral material inside the envelope, you’re out of luck.

Simply Noted is happy to send for customers additional inserts. One insert of the customer’s choice is included in our standard price. 

If you need to include additional inserts beyond one, you can for an extra charge. We can also produce the inserts for you if needed.

For business development, the capabilities to send inserts is an important and effective tool for your sales or customer retention.

Integrations

If you are not already using a CRM, these systems are extemely powerful!  Said differently: they're game changers.

The popular CRM systems allow you to add integrations for all sorts of functions.  These automate processes and help increase your efficiency.  Maximize whichever handwritten mail service you choice by integrating with your CRM system.

Simply Noted integrates with a number of off-the-shelf software packages like Zapier, Full RESTful API, Salesforce, and Hubspot. This lets you trigger cards to be mailed automatically when certain actions happen within your software.

As an example, you could have a card automatically printed and mailed whenever a new customer account is created. This sort of automation makes certain communications go out when they need to, without having to rely on memory.

Scribeless includes fewer integrations, but they are functional.

Both mail service providers offer integrations.  Depending on your CRM system, Simply Noted will have more availability.

Public API

With Simply Noted, not only can customers connect certain commercial software packages, but they can also integrate Simply Noted into their own software as well.  Very powerful for eCommerce or SaaS companies.

With our public API, customers can create orders from within any piece of custom software. If you have a custom CRM, or maintain some other proprietary application that you’d like to link to your handwritten letter account, you can do that.

This isn’t possible with Scribeless. 

If you need custom integrations, Simply Noted is your choice.

Pricing

One might expect Simply Noted to cost more than Scribeless due to the extra value the service provides. The opposite is true. 

Simply Noted’s base, single-card price is $2.70 plus postage. 

You’ll pay $2.75 plus postage for Scribeless’s service. 

This isn’t a significant difference, but the value you get for what you pay is significantly higher with Simply Noted.  While the price difference is only $.05 per card, consider the difference at scale.  This 2% difference over thousands of bulk mailed letters start to add up.

And Simply Noted sweetens the pot with its prepurchased credits system. Purchasing credits lowers your per card price considerably.

For a Handwritten Letter, Simply Noted is the Best Value