TL;DR
- Joy is free, genuinely. Website, planning tools, registry, unlimited guests and online RSVP at $0. If budget is the binding constraint, use Joy.
- Pressed Love is a paid, one-time product. €49 / €175 / €395 once, lifetime access, no renewal. Designing and previewing are free; you pay to publish.
- Languages work differently. On Essential, Pressed Love publishes one invitation in the languages you choose, and each guest switches with the globe button. Joy supports multiple languages by having you build a page version per language group and tag guests.
- Sending works differently. Pressed Love gives every guest a personal WhatsApp/SMS/email link. Joy sends by email or one shared link, with SMS as a paid add-on for US and Canadian numbers.
Full feature comparison
| Feature | Pressed Love | Joy (Withjoy) |
|---|---|---|
| Price to publish | One-time €49 / €175 / €395, lifetime access | Free — website, RSVP, registry and basic digital cards at $0 |
| Wedding website + registry | Invitation works as a single-page site; link any external registry | Full free wedding website and built-in registry with zero-fee cash funds |
| RSVP tracking | Real-time dashboard from Essential (€175); feeds the seating chart | Included free, tied to the guest list, custom questions |
| Editing depth before paying | Full editor free; you pay only to publish | Basic Digital Cards free with limited editing; full control on Premium bundles |
| Multi-language invitation | Up to 20 of 29 languages on one invitation (Essential), guests switch with a globe button | Supported, but built manually: one page version per language group + guest tags |
| Per-guest messaging | Personal link per guest via WhatsApp, SMS or email (Essential up) | Email or one shared link; SMS is a paid Premium add-on, US/Canada numbers only |
| Invitation experience | Animated envelope reveal, 26 curated wedding designs | Hundreds of card designs; premium designs unlock full customisation |
| Paper stationery | Digital only | Paper invitations and save-the-dates alongside digital |
| Planning suite | Planner, budget tracker and seating chart from Essential | Free planning dashboard, guest list and mobile app |
| Currency | Pages list EUR; checkout from the US charges USD | USD, US-first product |
| Track record | Newer platform | Long-established, widely used |
Joy wins more rows in that table than we do. That is the accurate picture: Joy is a broad free platform, Pressed Love is a narrow paid one. The question is not which has more rows, it is whether the rows you care about are on our side.
Free is a real advantage, and it is Joy's
Joy's pricing page lists $0 a month for the planning dashboard, wedding website, all-in-one registry, mobile app, unlimited guests, online RSVP and hundreds of digital invitation designs. It funds that through registry purchases and optional upgrades — a custom domain, premium stationery designs, paper. So the free tier is not a trial, a teaser or a 30-day window. It is the product.
Pressed Love has nothing comparable. You can design and preview an entire invitation without paying, but publishing it costs a one-time €49 (Starter — published invitation, shareable link and QR code), €175 (Essential — adds RSVP tracking, guest dashboard, per-guest WhatsApp/SMS/email links, the seating chart, planner and budget tracker) or €395 (Premium — made for you by our team, with a painting of your venue, your monogram, the whole suite, your own song and any colour). See the full pricing page. If a couple tells us their invitation budget is zero, the honest recommendation is Joy, not us.
Where the paid product earns its price
Design ceiling, and what the free tier lets you change
Joy's help centre is direct about the trade: Basic Digital Cards are free but come with limited editing options and fewer design choices, while Premium Digital Cards give full control over fonts, photos and layout and are sold in bundles by guest count. Joy does not publish a bundle price, so we will not quote one — check it in your own account before you compare.
On Pressed Love the whole editor is open before you pay a cent, across all 26 hand-curated designs, every one of them available on every plan. The invitation opens with an animated envelope reveal rather than resolving to a flat card. Whether that is worth €175 is a judgment about how much the invitation matters to your day — but you can make that judgment for free, with your own names and photos in it.
Up to 20 of 29 languages, chosen by the guest
Joy does support multilingual weddings, and it is more capable here than most free platforms — but its own documentation describes manual work: you create a version of each page for each language group, writing the content yourself, then tag guests so the right version unlocks for them. For two languages and a handful of pages that is entirely workable.
On the Essential plan, Pressed Love publishes a single invitation in up to20 languages you pick from 29. You write once; your text is machine-translated, and the schedule, FAQ, dress code, gift note and area map can each be rewritten by hand per language. The invitation opens in your first language and every guest switches with the globe button, so there are no duplicate pages to maintain, no tags to keep in sync, and no guest can be left on the wrong version. More on how it works in bilingual and multilingual wedding invitations.
Per-guest sending, not one shared link
Joy delivers digital cards by email through Joy, or as a link you share yourself via text, WhatsApp, Messenger or social. Joy's own SMS delivery is a paid add-on available on Premium Digital Cards, for US and Canadian phone numbers only.
Pressed Love builds sending around the individual guest from Essential upward: each person gets their own link and a pre-written WhatsApp, SMS or email message, sees their name when it opens, and RSVPs without an account — with the reply attributed to them automatically rather than arriving as an anonymous form submission. If your families are on WhatsApp and spread across countries, this is the practical daily difference.
Lifetime access that does not depend on a free tier
A free product is free at the pleasure of the company offering it. Joy's free tier is funded by registry revenue, and that model has held up well — this is an observation about structure, not an accusation. Pressed Love is a one-time purchase: you pay once, the invitation stays online, and there is no renewal, no per-guest charge and no tier that can be withdrawn from underneath you.
Things we will not claim
Two honest gaps. Joy does not document whether it places its own branding on free websites or Basic Digital Cards, so this page does not assert that it does — preview a card before you send it and judge for yourself. And on our side, the Pressed Love watermark is removed on Premium only; Starter and Essential invitations carry a small Pressed Love mark. Anyone telling you our paid plans are all unbranded is overselling it.
When Joy is the better choice
- Budget is the binding constraint. This is the whole ballgame. Joy does a real job for nothing and we charge €49 at minimum. If money is tight, pick Joy — the wedding matters more than which platform hosted the invitation.
- You want website, registry and invitation in one account. Joy's all-in-one pitch is genuine, and its registry with zero-fee cash funds is a strong piece of it. We do not run a registry or a multi-page site.
- You want paper too. Joy sells paper invitations and save-the-dates alongside the digital ones. Pressed Love is digital only, full stop.
- You want a US-first service. Joy is built in and for the US. Our pages list euro prices, though checkout from the US charges dollars ($55 / $195 / $439).
- Your wedding is single-language and email-shaped. If everyone reads English and email reaches them, our two biggest advantages do not apply to you.
When Pressed Love is the better fit
- Guests across languages. One invitation, up to 20 of 29 languages on Essential and Premium, each guest switching to theirs without you building a page per group.
- WhatsApp is how invitations travel in your family. Personal link per guest, reply attributed automatically.
- The invitation is part of the design of the day. Curated templates and an envelope reveal, with the full editor open before you pay.
- You want the seating chart attached to real RSVPs. From Essential, tables are built from the same guest list your replies land in.
Using both
This is not strictly either/or, and plenty of couples do exactly this: keep Joy for the free wedding website and the registry, and use Pressed Love for the invitation guests actually receive. The Pressed Love invitation links out to your Joy registry from its gift section, and your guests never see the seam.
How to try Pressed Love alongside Joy
- Sign up at /create — designing and previewing cost nothing
- Pick a template, paste your real wedding details, and look at it on a phone
- Export your Joy guest list as a CSV and import it on the Guest List screen
- Compare it side by side with your Joy card before deciding
- Publish only if it is clearly better for your wedding (Starter €49 / Essential €175 / Premium €395)
FAQs
Is Joy (Withjoy) really free?
Yes, and this is not a technicality. Joy's pricing page lists the wedding website, planning dashboard, all-in-one registry, mobile app, unlimited guests and online RSVP at $0 a month, alongside hundreds of free digital invitation designs. Joy makes its money from registry purchases and from optional upgrades such as a custom domain, premium stationery and paper. Pressed Love has no equivalent free tier: designing and previewing are free, but publishing costs a one-time €49, €175 or €395. If the invitation budget is genuinely zero, Joy is the better answer and we would rather say so.
What does Pressed Love do that Joy does not?
Four things, all checkable. First, from the Essential plan a Pressed Love invitation carries the languages you choose from 29: it opens in your first language and each guest switches with the globe button, while your text is machine-translated and key sections can be rewritten per language — Joy supports multiple languages, but per its own help centre you build it manually by writing a version of each page per language group and tagging guests. Second, per-guest WhatsApp, SMS and email sending: each guest gets a personal link, so RSVPs arrive already attributed. Joy sends by email or one shareable link, with SMS available only as a paid add-on on Premium Digital Cards and only to US and Canadian numbers. Third, the full design editor is open before you pay, where Joy's free Basic Digital Cards have "limited editing options and fewer design choices" in Joy's own words. Fourth, one payment, lifetime access — nothing renews and nothing depends on a free tier staying free.
Does Joy support invitations in more than one language?
Yes, but the mechanism matters. Joy's website interface is available in several languages, and Joy supports multilingual weddings by having you create a separate version of each page in each language and tag guests by language group so they see the right one. That is real capability, and for a two-language wedding it works well. It is also manual work you do yourself, per page, per language. On Pressed Love (Essential and up) you write one invitation and add languages from 29; your text is machine-translated, and you can rewrite the schedule, FAQ and dress code per language. It opens in your first language and every guest switches with the globe button, with no duplicate pages and no tagging.
Can Joy send wedding invitations over WhatsApp?
Indirectly. Joy's help centre says digital cards can be sent by email directly through Joy, or shared as a link via text, WhatsApp, Messenger or social media — so WhatsApp works, but as one link you forward yourself. Joy's own SMS sending is a paid add-on limited to Premium Digital Cards and to US and Canadian phone numbers. On Pressed Love, per-guest sending is the built-in flow from the Essential plan up: each guest gets their own link and a pre-written message, their name appears when they open it, and their reply attaches to their record automatically.
Does Joy include RSVP tracking, and is it free?
Yes and yes. Online RSVP is part of Joy's free core, tied to the guest list, with custom questions you can target at specific guest groups. It is one of the strongest free RSVP setups available. Pressed Love includes RSVP tracking from the Essential plan (€175) upward — the €49 Starter publishes the invitation without RSVP collection — and those replies feed the drag-and-drop seating chart directly. On price alone, Joy wins this row outright.
When is Joy the better choice?
When budget is the binding constraint, when you want a wedding website, registry and invitation in one free account, when you want a registry with cash funds (Joy states it charges zero fees on cash gifts), or when you also want paper stationery from the same place. Pressed Love is the better fit when the invitation itself is meant to carry the design of the day, when your guest list spans languages, or when WhatsApp is how invitations actually travel to your families.
Weighing up more than two options? Read the honest breakdowns for Zola, Evite, Paperless Post and Greenvelope.