Service
Handwritten letters, written with a real pen
You write the message once. We write it out 1,000 times, or 50,000 times, with a ballpoint pen moving across real paper — one piece at a time, each one slightly different from the last.
A handwritten letter service writes your letters for you with a real pen rather than printing them. At Autopen Australia the writing is done by a machine that holds an ordinary ballpoint and moves it across the page the way a hand does, which is what makes campaign volumes possible without a room full of people writing.
Where a letter beats a card
A card is warm but short. A letter has room to set out a situation, make an argument and ask for something specific — which is why letters are the format for acquisition, reactivation and prospecting, and cards are the format for gratitude.
The tension is that length costs money and attention. Every extra hundred words adds roughly a dollar per piece and reduces the number of people who reach the end. If you cannot say it in 180 words, the problem is usually the message rather than the format.
What a good one looks like
- One reason for writing, stated in the first sentence. Not a preamble about who you are.
- Something specific to the reader that could not have been in anyone else’s letter — their street, their renewal date, the thing they bought.
- One action, and a way to take it that does not require a computer. A phone number beats a URL on paper.
- A signature in real ink. An unsigned handwritten letter is a strange object.
What a letter campaign costs
1,000 letters at 140 words, in a handwritten envelope, delivered back to you to lodge: $3.51 per piece, or $3,857 including GST.
| Quantity | Per piece | Campaign total | Volume tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| 250 | $4.13 | $1,137 | 250+ pieces |
| 1,000 | $3.51 | $3,857 | 1,000+ pieces |
| 5,000 | $3.17 | $17,437 | 5,000+ pieces |
| 20,000 | $3.10 | $68,300 | 10,000+ pieces |
Indicative only, including GST, 140 words per piece, with a handwritten envelope, excluding postage. Full pricing and calculator.
What we need from you
A spreadsheet and a paragraph is genuinely enough to get a quote. To go into production we need three things:
- The message, with any merge fields marked in whatever way is obvious to you — square brackets are fine.
- The list, as CSV or XLSX, with the address fields and any personalisation columns. We will tell you what is missing or malformed before it becomes a problem.
- A decision on stationery — your letterhead, plain stock, or something we source.
You get a written proof of the actual piece before anything is produced. Same pen, same paper, same hand. The full process is here.
Questions about handwritten letters
How long can a handwritten letter be?
Up to about 500 words, which is a full page of handwriting. Most business letters that work land between 90 and 180 words — long enough to make one clear point, short enough that the reader finishes it. Price rises with length, so there is a real cost to padding.
What paper and pen do you use?
A ballpoint on uncoated stock, because that combination is what a person reaching for a pen and a sheet of paper actually produces. Coated or glossy stock defeats the effect entirely — the ink sits on top and the piece reads as printed.
Can the letter be different for each recipient?
Yes. Merge fields are written into the sentence in the same hand as the words either side, so there is no visual join. You can vary a name, a suburb, a product, a date or a whole paragraph.
Will every letter look identical?
No, and that is the point. Letterform shapes, spacing and baseline drift vary from piece to piece the way a person’s handwriting does. Two letters side by side look like the same person wrote them on the same afternoon, not like two copies of one file.
What is the minimum order for handwritten letters?
100 letters. Below that, campaign setup dominates the price and you would get better value writing them yourself.
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Send us the letter you would write
Even a rough draft. We will come back with an exact price, a view on the length, and an honest opinion about whether it will land.