Opened, card alone
600
Who it's for
You spend real money on what you ship. Make sure it works.
The gifts, mailers, and kits you ship cost real money, and mostly go out on instinct. SweetNote turns each one into a video message and a decision you can measure.
Is there a study here?
Answer three quick questions. We’ll tell you straight.
Shipping something physical to your own list?
your whole list
Want to see how it actually lands?
A gut-check, not a quote. The calculator prices it and shows exactly what your list can resolve.
Shipping something physical to a list you know, with about 50 or more people? There’s a study here. One activation date per study: a single drop, not a rolling program. The calculator prices it.
Why test first
Prove it on your sample before you ship to your whole list.
Shipping at scale gets expensive fast. Test on your sample first, see what actually works, and put the budget behind the send most likely to pay off, not behind a hunch.
Common use cases
Where SweetNote thrives.
Four teams, four questions a physical send can answer, and the kind of result each gives back: a clear winner, a tie worth knowing, a map of where the budget lands.
- Advancement & developmentWhich gift, and for whom, before the whole file gets it.
- Corporate gifting & DTCWhich message, which insert, declared in dollars.
- Field & event marketingWhich kit, against the cost of a lead elsewhere.
- Membership & loyaltyDoes the welcome kit get opened, and what happens next.
- People & HRWhere recognition spend actually lands, by team.
Example · sample data
A/B + Outcome · which message paid
Two messages, one winner in dollars
Same gift, same box: only the video message differs, randomized.
A/B · randomized message test · orders aggregated by cell as counts and sums, never a per-person amount.
Customer gifting · subscription and DTC brands
Which message actually moves them?
Two versions of the video message, randomized across the same customers. Outcome Attribution ties repeat orders back, so the winner is declared in dollars per recipient, with its margin, before the message ships in every gift this year.
$7,248 study, 1,200 recipients, decides the message in every gift this year. Outcome Attribution is included on any study.
Example · sample data
Gift A/B · which gift won
Took the next step
Same reveal, four gifts, 1,250 recipients each: the top two, head to head. Next-step clicks per recipient assigned; bars on a 0–10% scale.
Field and event marketing · B2B teams
Which gift should we scale?
Two to five gifts side by side on a sample: same reveal, only the gift differs, and the next step you care about is the measured action. A tie is an answer too: it saves paying for the fancier one program-wide.
The bar is your cheapest alternative route to the same step. If a meeting costs $180 through the next-best channel, the kit has a number to beat.
$15,747 study, 5,000 recipients across four gifts, decides a $200,000 program (25,000 kits at $8, your number)
Example · sample data
Cohort study · Reach by giving tier
Where the moment landed
Observed, descriptive — each tier read against all others.
| Giving tier | Sent | Scanned | Reach |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sustaining | 1,500 | 443 | 30% |
| Mid-level | 1,701 | 433 | 25% |
| Grassroots | 1,799 | 374 | 21% |
Every rate carries its 95% interval; cells under 25 recipients keep their counts and hold their rate.
Donor development · charities and foundations
Gift whom? Where is the budget landing?
The real decision was never gift-or-not. It was gift whom. A Cohort study slices the send by the columns you already keep (giving tier, tenure, region) and reads each segment against all others. Observed, not caused, and a map to reallocate from.
When the question is the gift itself, put the same cohort_tier column in a Gift Lift file: the gift-versus-card lift then reads inside each tier, on the randomized base.
$12,247 study, 5,000 recipients, reallocates a $250,000 mailing budget.
Example · sample data
Gift Lift · gift vs no gift
Opened it
Randomized 50/50, 1,200 per arm; share of everyone assigned who scanned (intention-to-treat).
Advancement and stewardship · higher ed, healthcare, cultural institutions
Is the gift itself worth it?
A Gift Lift randomizes box against card-only across the same list: you learn what the gift moves on a sample, and walk into the budget meeting with an interval, not an anecdote. When it moves nothing, that’s a line you cut with confidence.
The headline is Reach (did the box get opened more): it sits on the pure randomized base and carries the most events. The next step is the supporting read; Outcome Attribution, included, puts dollars behind it.
$10,848 study, 2,400 recipients, decides a 48,000-piece rollout ($9 a piece, your number: $432,000)
Snapshot
Not testing anything yet? A Snapshot is the baseline read: every signal, a settled report, no test required, at the lowest published price.
Price a Snapshot →Study prices are our published list at the recipient count shown; send figures use your own per-unit cost, labelled inline. The results shown are sample data from example studies. See the five study designs →
Before you mail, and again after it settles
Was the gift worth what it cost?
Proving the gift moved reach is one question. Whether it moved it enough to be worth $5 a head is the one your budget meeting asks.
Illustrative example · not a result from any SweetNote study
You mail 2,000 pieces. The card is $4.00 delivered; the gift adds $5.00 all in.
Card alone2,000 × $4.00
$8,000
$8,000 of cards
Card plus gift2,000 × $9.00
$18,000
$8,000 of cards
+ $10,000 of gifts
The cards are spent either way. Only the $10,000 of gifts is under test.
What that $10,000 bought
→
Opened, plus gift
800
=
The gift bought
200 more
$10,000 ÷ 200 more
$50.00
Is one more opening worth $50 to you?
Each extra opening cost $50.00. Anywhere from $31 to $125, depending where the true lift sits.
So, is one opening worth…
- under $31it did not pay
- $31 to $125too close to call
- over $125it paid
What you say in the budget meeting
“Each extra opening cost us $50, and the honest range is $31 to $125. We are looking at 48,000 pieces next year, so that is $240,000 of gifts riding on the answer. Above $125 an opening, the gift earns its place for us. Below $31 it does not. We landed in between, so we are sizing the study that settles it before we commit the budget.”
What if that money could reach more people instead?
The read above assumes you are mailing this list either way, so the $10,000 of gifts is the whole decision. If that money could instead buy more cards for more people, the bar is different and harder: $10,000 puts a card in front of 2,500 more people, so the gift has to beat whatever those 2,500 would have done. We compute whichever case you are in, and the report says which.
Where these numbers come from
The figures on this card are illustrative, not a result from any SweetNote study. In a real one they are read off a settled study, never predicted: the 200 extra openings come from the randomized arms, which is the only part we measure, and the $31 to $125 range is the 95% interval on that lift carried through the division. The dollar value of an opening is yours, unless you turn on Outcome Attribution, which is included, and then we measure that side too. On a Snapshot, Cohort or A/B the same lens runs on the whole send instead of on a gift. Your study fee stays its own line and never blends into the send. See how a study settles →
Questions
The questions worth asking first.
On video, list size, privacy, and timing: a straight answer to each.
Do I have to be on camera?
No. The video is yours to make: a founder note, a brand film, an impact reel, whatever fits. It just has to be a video; how you make it is up to you.
What if my list is small?
Under about 50 there is no study to run, and we will tell you rather than sell you a suppressed dashboard. Above that, more people means a sharper read. You decide how sure you need to be.
My real question is renewals, or lifetime value.
Then we can give you the early read, not the whole answer. A study measures the moment: 30 days of everything the recipient does with it, plus a 31–90-day descriptive tail. Outcomes that land inside that window (a gift, an order, a booking) attribute back; an annual renewal eleven months out does not, and we will not model one. What you get is whether the send got opened, acted on and converted, tier by tier, before the renewal cycle you cannot wait for.
Do you track individuals?
No. Reactions are anonymous. You see how many reacted, never who. That is what makes it safe for donors, patients, and employees. Need per-person data for your own systems? The opt-in export hands it back token-keyed, no names, for you to join on your side.
What if my send is soon?
The dashboard updates daily, so you see progress the moment your window opens. Final counts settle at 30 days. Add print and ship time in front of that. If the big send goes out in three weeks, there's not enough runway to test first, so check your calendar early.
Your brand, not ours
You brand it however you want.
You set how it looks and what it says. We keep what's measured identical every time, so the numbers actually compare.
Yours to set
- The colors, logo, and typeface: it's your page, not ours.
- The link itself: lead with your own brand (yourname.thesweetnote.com) or keep it neutral.
- The video, the message, and the wording of the button.
- The groups you bring (tier, region, tenure), which become the dashboard filters.
The same every time
- The reveal layout and the one next-step button.
- The signals: Reach, Engagement, Action, Affirmation, Speed, Rescanned.
- The floors: no rate shows under 25 recipients, on any send.
Every number you see is your own. See the five study designs →
See how a study runs.
Walk it end to end — the reveal on their phone, the live dashboard, the settled report — then price it for your own list. Same published price for every brand at the same study size.