82.5 Million Postcards sent in 20 years of Postcrossing

I cannot believe that Postcrossing has been around for 20 years as of Monday 14th July 2025. That is twenty years of people sending postcards to each other from all over the world! I think that is absolutely amazing. Since international postage is pretty expensive, even on postcards, I have not sent nearly as many as I would have liked to but I do love sending and receiving these little moments of joy on occasion. This week, my email inbox was blocked because it contained tens of thousands of emails and was full. Yet I received no nice letters or postcards in my postbox. Postcrossing is a website that helps to change that – allowing your postbox to start filling up with postcards, instead of just bills.

Postcrossing in numbers

For the last twenty years, over 800K members have joined the site from over 200 countries. They have contributed to sending over eighty-two million postcards. Yes, you read that correctly. To be more precise, over 82.5 million postcards have been received, with thousands more in transit right now. The numbers are incredibly impressive! If you visit the homepage, you will find the most accurate and up-to-date numbers.

So what exactly is Postcrossing?

Postcrossing is a website where you register to send and receive postcards. For every postcard you send, you should receive one back! The goal is to allow people to send postcards all over the globe and, conversely, to receive them from anywhere.

I have noticed that a lot of my post seems to be going to similar countries, where there are more registered users. However, it’s just a numbers game. If there are more individuals from certain countries, you’re more likely to be sending or receiving post from those countries by default.

Getting involved is really simple. All you have to do is sign up onto the website and start sending postcards. You will be given an postcard ID that you have to include on it. You also can see the receiver’s biography, so you can tailor the postcards or messages to them specifically. Then you send it and once they receive it, they input that ID onto the system and it will show up as received!

It is super easy to do. Once you’ve sent some, you will also start to receive some – so make sure your address is accurate.

You can send as many as you want (you will receive roughly the same amount as you send), the only limit is your own time and money. International postage does add up, sadly! The system will cap you by limiting how many you can send in one go but once those have been received, you will be able to send more immediately. The cap (default starts at 5) will also start rising as you send more!

Is it worth it?

Honestly, it is super fun. If I suddenly become rich (or Royal Mail sponsored me), I would be sending them constantly. Sadly, with postage now starting from £3.20+ for a postcard, it is no longer feasible for me to send as many as I would like to send. I need a national version of this! However, what I will likely do is – every so often – send out some postcards. Since you can choose when to send out more (you apply for an ID whenever you want to send one) and you have the freedom to turn accounts to ‘inactive’ whenever you want, it’s easy enough to send a couple whenever you are ready, which I love about this. You don’t need to feel forced to send stuff immediately.

It is incredibly active, though. In the time I took to write this post, over 500 postcards were received!

Visit Postcrossing.com for more information!