I’ve been talking to some friends that uses this site as well about their feelings on the sending limit.
I think it’s crazy that it’s so low, 100 sent and you can only send out 11 postcards. Does anyone else have feelings about this? I think personally it’s time for Postcrossing to update the sending limits and make it more reasonable, 100 postcards sent is a lot of money spent for us.
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Personally I never thought it would be a problem, it was never too little for me. When it was low, it prevented me from spending too much, when it grew I rarely fill it…now that I have… I don’t even know, 15? I don’t really pay attention to it anymore. Recently I had 10 going at the same time and it was unusual (plus a million expired).
Is there a lot of people finding it too low? I know many do swaps and tags and games to send/receive more, would that not appeal to you?
(I also prefer officials and when I take part in games or swaps it’s because I feel like doing something different, not because I have no slots).
I think in the past the number didn’t increase, it was 5 for all members, but that was before my time.
So for me personally it’s not an issue, I don’t know if there are reasons to keep it like this.
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I think the logic may be that if people can send a ton of postcards they will start to get very generic and rushed or people would burnout on sending them. I do wish I had a higher limit because I am just waiting for cards to get registered so I can send more. Patience is key. BtW you look just like my long lost niece. Happy Postcrossing!
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The number has increased previously.
Originally it was 3, then after several months was raised to 5 and then later the sliding scale was introduced.
https://www.postcrossing.com/help/how-many-postcards-can-i-send
One of the main reasons why it is low for new members is because we don’t want new members to over-commit themselves. While it is free to use Postcrossing there is an added cost of postage and the postcard (and that isn’t counting the time commitment in writing the postcards).
Another reason is that we don’t want members (especially new ones) cherry-picking the addresses. Let’s say for example you can initially request 10 addresses but you don’t wish to send to some of those members (profile, country, faves, prejudice etc.) so out of the 10 only send 4. What about the others who should receive a postcard from the member and don’t!
The numbers increase quite rapidly initially, then slow down to every 50 afterwards. Not many members actually send their full allowance after they have been using Postcrossing for a while.
Vicki
Postcrossing Team
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I’ve been using postcrossing since 2017, I had to take a break from sending postcards for travel reasons for awhile but after picking it up again I’m fully committed to every address I get, I really think that 11 limit for 100 postcards needs to be revamped and reviewed. I’ve spent a lot on postcards and stamps since ‘17 (which isn’t a issue I enjoy the postoffice) and I really think 11 seems very low for the 100 mark. Please take in consideration
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This is not a reason I had thought of, but an excellent one. One case where I can definitely see that happening is in countries where some regions cost more to send to, for example.
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The reasons for the low initial limit are very reasonable and understandable, but I think the original point of the OP is about people who have been around a while but still can “only” send 11. So it is very slightly different, I think.
I still think people make up for it with private arrangements and forum activities.
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I agree. I doubled my “official” postcrossing limit by sending cards through tags and RRs. Perhaps when I reach a higher limit I’ll stop participating in RRs and tags 
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I’m fine with it. I can send up to 38 cards which is crazy. I try not to have more than 10 travelling. Also consider that, when I started in 2007, there was a fixed limit of just 5 cards travelling at the same time, no matter how active you were.
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I’ve never had a problem with sending limits because I can’t send a lot of postcards in one go. However I do think that for people who can’t travel to the post office all the time, it would be beneficial if they were able to have more open slots. For people who live in countries with slow postal networks, they have to wait a longer time for a slot to open up.
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I personally don’t have a problem with the sending limit–even when I had just started Postcrossing and could only send 5. I guess I view snail mail as an exercise in patience and that with the limited slots that one has–it just emphasizes more on how much thought you should put in each postcard before sending it out. It seems rather impersonal to me to have the ability to send huge numbers of postcards when you might not have time to actually write a substantial message to each recipient.
I’m actually curious as to what actual limit people would suggest if they don’t like the current limits. Do they want to send postcards out in batches of 50? 10 each week? Just have the ability to send however many they feel like on any given day? A limit based on your budget? I think with whatever limit you choose, you’ll still have the problem of some people only picking and choosing who to send to–and it will only get worse if the limit starts out higher.
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When I had sent 100 cards, I felt like you, but that strict limit kept me here and taught me to send a card to every address I pulled while keeping me from overdoing postcrossing.
What should be the limit for 100 sent cards in your opinion?
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I like the current limits, but have to admit that it did felt too little at the beginning. However, I agree with the reasons that were already mentioned earlier in this thread. The limits helps to make sure new members do not exhaust themselves by accident (it is so easy to just keep clicking the new address button… and then later realize you also need to write and send each card). The limits also helps to keep it fresh like you get new countries in slower pace and also the extra slots you get later on is like a mini-celebration; look! You have done well! Now you can send one card more!
And honestly, it has never been a problem finding trade partners if you are still hungry for sending after the official slots are all taken. Just test out few tags and make a trade offer… Especially if you have lot of cards and the types people are looking for, it is easy to get additional 5-10 sent cards per week. Forum trades do take more effort to arrange, but you get to be bit more precise about what you want.
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I agree with your first paragraph. I am pretty new to Postcrossing. I like when you wrote, *“I view snail mail as an exercise in patience and that with the limited slots that one has–it just emphasizes more on how much thought you should put in each postcard before sending it out.”
I find it extremely disappointing to get a postcard and it just says “Happy Postcrossing” or in another case it only had rubber stamp imprints (interesting because her profile stated to please not leave the postcard blank, please write a message).
I am okay with the limits. For me there is some excitement to the “waiting” period.
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I never really cared personally, never looked at it in terms of money spent either. I’m actually quite curious about the reasoning behind that @Kaitlandmc: “100 postcards sent is a lot of money spent for us”
I can send up to 19 cards now, almost 20, but I rarely write more than 5 at once anyway
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I can currently send up to 15 and it had never been a problem. Till the pandemic hit… and postcards that would normally arrive in 3-10 days (and free slots), need 25+ to reach the receiver. I believe for some of us the distress is only temporary because things are slower. I mean, I started private and tags during the pandemic, this hints how much slower things are.
In normal days 15 is pretty ok (if you consider that every week you get at least 10 of the slots emptied and available)
It could be that there was a change in the limit just for a certain period of time (something like +5 for everyone or +25%) but i dont know how easy would that be for the algorithm or if it would really make a difference to most postcrossers.
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I too don’t understand how the money spent matters here. Under 100 cards in over 3 years is not especially much money spent in my opinion. And as some countries have more expensive cards and postage, it cannot be that the amount money spent on cards ratios with the free slots.
I’m also interested in the amount you’d like to send @Kaitlandmc?
Also, with every sent card, that you spend time and money to write, you also must take time to register the card you receive, and I think it’s good that one slowly gets the cards, and the amount of cards to register grows slowly. Not that you can write 50 cards at once, and if you get a patch of 30 or more cards in a day, you loose interest to register them.
At the moment I can have 56 travelling, but have “only” 24, even though I have had a lot of free time, and time for writing cards. But I understand, that at least for me, it feels good to have a possibility to draw an address. And it’s not the same thing to take part in tags. I like the surprise element of getting the address, and not asking for one, waiting for the reply etc.
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I sometimes feel frustrated by limits because I’m in California. I’m on the edge of a large country and every card outside of mailing to the USA takes at least a week and many take upwards of a month to six weeks. It takes a LONG time even with sending five a week to get to the next 50 received and added to my sent numbers. Small countries in the middle of Europe have a geographical advantage.
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Er, every card outside of Europe takes at least a week and many take upwards of a month to six weeks, too. Even within Europe (and I say this advisedly, since UK is finally about to leave “Europe” but that’s a political thing, not a postal thing) cards to superfast countries like Germany can take up to six weeks. In my experience, cards from here to USA arrive in about ten days.
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Uh, member from a small country in the middle of Europe here. At the moment I have 9 not expired cards travelling and guess what: 5 of them are going to the US, one to Brazil and one to China, one to Russia and one to Belarus. Two expired cards are still travelling to Mexico and Indonesia. All have been travelling more than 11 days by now. Is this the geographical advantage you are talking about?
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