If you gave us a link when you ordered, your card already works. Tap it and it goes straight there. The first tap is what switches it on: the card points itself at the address you typed on Etsy, and shows you a short page telling you where it now goes. Every tap after that goes straight through. There is nothing to set up and no account to make.

If you did not give a link — or you bought one of the listings that does not ask for one — your card arrives blank of any destination until you tell it where to send people, and you do that at somebody.cards/etsy. No account is needed to get in: enter the order number from your Etsy receipt and the email address Etsy has for you.

Two ways your card can work

Once your order is found, you pick one of two things. If you bought several cards on one order, they all work the same way — the choice applies to the whole order.

Send people to a link you already have. Your Instagram, a Linktree, your website, a Google review page — anything with a web address. This is the simplest option, and it is the one that never depends on anything: there is no account, no subscription and nothing that can expire.

Give yourself a Somebody.Cards profile. Your own page with several links, your contact details and your tap statistics. It is free for three months, we do not ask for card details, and your cards open it the moment they arrive — nothing to scan and nothing to set up.

What happens when the three months end

They are three months, not forever, and you are told twice before they run out: we email you two weeks before and again three days before. Nothing stops on that date — the free months turn into a free 30-day trial, your card keeps working, and nothing is charged unless you add card details yourself.

If the trial ends without a subscription, your profile stops being visible and your cards stop opening it. Nothing is deleted: we keep your profile for 180 days, and adding billing brings it back exactly as it was.

Choosing your card’s design

The same page asks which design your cards are printed in. Pick one of the colours shown — and if you bought one of the cards that carries a name, there is a box for that too. If you bought several cards on one order, they are all printed the same — there is no mixing colours within an order.

You can change your mind as many times as you like, right up until you approve your proof. After that the design is fixed, because it is ink. The address your card opens can still be changed whenever you want, long after printing — that part is not fixed and never becomes fixed.

If the page shows no designs to choose from, your order is one we are setting up by hand, and we will message you on Etsy about it.

If you bought a card with your name on it

Some of our Etsy listings print a name on the card and some do not. If yours does, the design step asks for it, and it is usually already filled in with what you typed on Etsy — read it over, because what is in that box is what goes on the plastic. Correct the spelling or the capitalisation if you need to.

Names can be up to 32 characters. That is not a database limit, it is the width of the space on the card: a longer one would run off the edge rather than shrink to fit.

One name per order. Every card on the order is printed with the same name. If you want cards for several different people, place a separate order for each, or message us on Etsy and we will sort it out with you.

If your Etsy order happens to list more than one name — which can happen if you added the listing to your basket more than once — we do not guess. The page shows you the names it found and asks which one to print.

You can change the name as often as you like until you approve your proof, exactly like the design. After approval it is fixed, for the same reason: it is ink.

If you bought one of the upload-your-own cards

Some of our listings let you put your own artwork on the card. For those, the design step asks for two things: a style and an image.

The style is not decoration. It sets the back of your card, which is where the QR code goes — so your image goes on the front and the back stays a card that works. Pick the style first; the upload box turns on once you have.

What to upload:

• A PNG or a JPEG, up to 5MB.
• At least 1011 × 638 pixels. That is not an arbitrary number — it is a bank-card-sized rectangle at 300 dots per inch, which is what the printer is sent. Anything smaller has to be stretched.
• 1081 × 709 is better, because it gives us a few millimetres to trim off the edges without cutting into your design.
• Roughly card-shaped. A square photo will be cropped to fit, and your proof will show you exactly where.

We will tell you if an image is too small to print sharply, rather than printing it and hoping. If it will print but is not ideal — no room for the trim, or the wrong shape — you get a note and can carry on anyway.

We cannot print from a PDF. If that is what you have, export it as a PNG or a JPEG at 300 DPI and upload that instead. It is the one file type that looks like it should work and does not.

You can replace your image as often as you like until you approve your proof. One thing to know: if you change the style after uploading, the image comes off and you will need to upload it again — the style change rebuilds the card.

Or design one here

If you do not have artwork ready, the same step offers a designer: Design your card here instead. It opens a canvas where you can add text, shapes and your own pictures, move them around and see the card as you go.

Two things are worth knowing before you start.

The red band round the edge is the trim. Your card is cut out of a bigger sheet and the cut moves by a fraction of a millimetre each time. Backgrounds are meant to run right through that band — that is what stops a white sliver appearing along an edge. Anything you want somebody to read, though, needs to stay inside the dashed line.

You are designing the front only. The back is already done: it carries your card's QR code and comes from the style you picked. The designer has a front/back switch, but nothing you put on the back is saved.

Your design is kept as you left it, so you can come back and change it until you approve your proof.

Approving your proof

This depends on which card you bought.

If you bought a plain colour, or a colour with a name on it, there is no proof step. You chose the colour on Etsy, and the name if your card carries one, so there is nothing left for us to ask — we print it and post it. That is what lets these orders go out the day they arrive instead of waiting on you.

We email you the moment it goes to print, and that email says exactly what is on the card. If anything is wrong — a name spelled differently from how you meant it, the wrong colour — reply on the Etsy order thread straight away. We print in batches, so there is usually a window of a few hours in which we can still stop it.

If you bought one of the upload-your-own cards, you do approve a proof, and nothing is printed before you do. Once you have picked a style and uploaded your image, the page offers you the actual file that goes to our printer, with your card's own code already on it. It is not a mock-up or a preview drawn a different way — it is the file itself.

Open it, look at it, and if you are happy tick the box and press Approve and send to print. If you never approve it, your cards wait — we will chase you on Etsy rather than printing something you have not seen.

Approving is the point at which the design stops being changeable. If you spot something wrong after approving, message us on the Etsy order thread straight away: if it has not reached the printer yet we can usually still stop it.

If you do not get round to it

We will email you a couple of reminders — after two days, and again if the order is still waiting. They go to the address on your Etsy order, and they are only about this order: we do not add you to anything.

Custom orders that are not designed within 14 days are cancelled and refunded in full. That is not a penalty, it is just so an order does not sit open for ever — and if you would rather it were cancelled, you can simply ignore the reminders and it will be.

If you need longer, reply on the Etsy order thread and say so. We would much rather hold the order than cancel it.

Changing where your card sends people

If you chose your own link, the quickest way is somebody.cards/card — there is a link to it at the bottom of every page on this site. Type in the code printed on the back of your card, put in the new address, and save. Every card from that order follows the new one, including cards already in your pocket.

You do not need your Etsy order number for that, and you do not need an account. That is deliberate: plenty of these cards are bought as presents, and the person holding the card is often not the person whose email is on the receipt. The card itself is the key.

There is also a QR code on the slip in your parcel that takes you straight to your own card’s page, with the code already filled in — nothing to type at all.

The code is eight characters. Capitals or lower case, with or without the dash — we read them the same way, and we treat O and 0 as the same character because they are easy to mix up on a printed card.

Your card opens a Somebody.Cards address that we point wherever you say, so a link that stops working is a two-minute fix rather than a new card. This keeps working for as long as you have the cards. There is no point at which the link is locked.

One thing worth knowing: because the code on the card is all it takes, anybody who can read the back of your card could change where it points. We think that is the right trade — it is what means you never have to find a receipt — but it is worth knowing if you are posting photographs of your card. If it ever does send people somewhere you did not choose, change it straight back from the same page.

If you chose the profile, sign in at somebody.cards and change your links there, along with your contact details and your design.

If you cannot find your order

The order number is on your Etsy receipt and in the order confirmation email Etsy sent you. The email address has to be the one on that Etsy order, which is not always the one you use elsewhere. If it still will not match, reply to the Etsy message thread for your order and we will sort it out.