Write a birthday letter today and we deliver it on a future birthday — theirs or yours. The most personal birthday gift you can give.
Birthdays accumulate gifts that mostly get used and forgotten. The candles get burned, the bracelet gets worn for a season, the wallet gets replaced when it wears out. Almost nothing from any given birthday survives the year, let alone the decade. The exception is the handwritten or carefully-typed note, which people keep in drawers for the rest of their lives. Birthday letters are the rare gift that ages up with the recipient.
You write the letter today — for them, or for yourself. You describe who they are at this exact age. The specific thing about them you don't want them to forget. The hopes you have for the year they're entering. The things you hope they're carrying with them ten birthdays from now. Then we hold the letter and deliver it on a future birthday: their next one, their 18th, their 30th, their 50th. Whatever age you want the letter to land at.
Birthdays you'd otherwise forget become a year you can revisit. A grandmother's letter to a grandchild, delivered on the grandchild's 16th birthday, is a piece of family history. A letter you wrote yourself at 30 and open at 31 is its own kind of state-of-the-self report. A birthday letter is one of the few gifts that the recipient is still talking about a decade later. The cost is forty minutes today. The return runs for the recipient's whole life.
Three simple steps. One beautiful moment, later.
Pour your heart onto paper. Use our Letter Helper if you'd like prompts. You decide when it should be opened — 1 year or 2 years from now.
Mail your sealed letter to our PO Box. We store it in a climate-controlled, fireproof safe — untouched, unopened, waiting.
On your chosen date, we mail your original, handwritten letter with tracking. Your words arrive exactly when they're meant to.
Your letter is in safe hands
You're trusting us with something irreplaceable. Here's what we do about that.
Letters are stored in climate-controlled, fireproof safes — not filing cabinets or cardboard boxes. We treat every letter as irreplaceable, because to someone, it is.
Every letter ships with an active tracking number, so you (or the recipient) know exactly when it's on its way.
If your address changes before your delivery date, email us anytime and we'll update your file. Your letter follows you — no extra fee.
If Hold My Letter ever closes, every stored letter is immediately mailed back to the sender's return address. No exceptions.
One letter. One delivery. One beautiful moment when it returns.
Emailed on your chosen date between 6 months and 2 years out. Add physical mailing for a small fee. Available worldwide — the right choice if you're writing to (or from) outside the United States.
One-time payment
+$12 to add physical mailing (first address)
One-time payment
+$12 to add physical mailing (first address)
Physical mailing add-on: +$12 for the first address. Each additional unique address: +$2.
The original Hold My Letter experience. Handwrite your letter, seal the envelope, and mail it to our PO Box. We store it in a climate-controlled, fireproof safe until your chosen delivery date — then send it back with tracking, still sealed.
One-time payment
One-time payment
🇺🇸 Currently available for US addresses only. International shipping coming soon!
Everything you need to know, answered plainly.
It only takes 20 minutes. The moment it lands will be worth years.
12 chapters. Age-by-age writing scripts. Read on the site.