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Free e-cards can be a great asset to your business, and they are just plain fun to send for personal use as well. However, which free e-cards should you use, or does it even matter?I have rated 5 of the most common free e-card services on areas such as ease of site navigation, volume of cards, advertising, etc. The table below shows a summary of my findings, with more detailed info following the chart.

123Greetings.com
123Greetings.com has one of the largest selections of free e-cards, they claim 20,000 e-cards in 3,000 categories (I will take their word for it, because I really didn’t have the time to check!) The site is easy to navigate, however, there are banner ads all over the site, a pop-up that snuck in under my blocker, and after you send, you are given even more opportunities to click on ads! However, you can opt out of being put on their mailing list and even opt to NOT have your info saved with a simple click before you send your card. However, I can’t recommend them for business use, because when I was opening a free e-card that was sent to me, I had not 1 but 2 pop-ups that tried to open. There are also banner ads on the page when you view your card. You don’t have to register to send a card, simply put in your name and e-mail and your recipients name and e-mail. Since your purpose in sending cards to your customers is to make them feel appreciated, not bombard them with other ads, keep 123greetings.com for those personal uses with friends who won’t be annoyed by the pop-ups.

AmericanGreetings.com
American Greetings has approximately 160 free e-cards that you can send. There are business appropriate thank you cards as well as cards from just about any occasion or holiday included. The site is easy to navigate, as it is arranged to search by recipient as well as by occasion. To save yourself time, simply type “free” into the search box so you don’t find the perfect card only to find out it is a premium card. You don’t have to have an account to send a card, simply type in your name and e-mail and the recipients name and e-mail. Membership can be either for their e-cards or their create and print studio or both. At the time of this writing, one year membership to e-cards is $13.99; create and print is $19.99 and a membership to both is $29.99 a year. All memberships include a one month free trial. By sending a free e-card you agree to be on the American Greetings mailing list, and you view an advertisement while you wait for your e-card to send. Also, when you send your first free e-card, you are given the limited time option to join the e-cards membership for just $9.99 for a year. I recommend American Greeting for free e-cards because there are no ads on the pick up page to distract or annoy your recipient. To send a free e-card, go to www.americangreetings.com

BlueMountain.com
I have to admit, I’m a little biased towards Blue Mountain. I’ve been a member of both Create and Print and E-Cards for several years now. However, I recommend their membership over sending a free card with their service. With their free e-cards, type in “free” and you will get a list of 25 different categories where they have free cards (I found over 200 cards in just 7 of their categories). There was a banner ad on the side of the page that I sent from, but other than that, no advertisement on the card I sent, and I didn’t have to view any ads to send a card. You don’t have to have an account to send a card, simply type in your name and e-mail and the recipients name and e-mail. You can opt out of their mailing list before you send your card with a simple click of a button. I think Blue Mountain is the easiest to navigate and find cards for whatever occasion you are looking for. Their membership prices at the time of this writing were Create and Print - $19.99, E-Cards 13.99 and Both for $29.99. All are annual subscriptions, and you can have a one month free trial. I like that I can set up alerts, so Blue Mountain will remind be before special occasions and birthdays that I enter into their system. When you send a free e-card, you get a chance to purchase an e-card membership for just $9.99. The downside of the free cards at BlueMountain is that there is one vertical banner ad on the page where the recipient picks up the card. To send a free e-card go to www.bluemountain.com

Hallmark.com
With Hallmark’s free e-cards, you have to register as a member before you can send a free e-card. Registration is simple and doesn’t require confirmation, but you are required to enter your first and last name before you can send a card. The site is easy to navigate, but there are several ads on the pages where you shop for and select a card. Some of these are a bit annoying with sound and they take over part of the page. However, there are NO ads on the recipients end. They don’t offer a membership, but you can purchase premium e-cards for around $1.49 - 1.99 each. Not as big a selection as others, but for business purposes, since there are no ads on the recipient end, I can recommend for business use.

MyFunCards.com
MyFunCards.com does not require registration to send cards. They claim over 1000 cards available to send. However, you have to download their toolbar onto your browser in order to access their cards. I’m not inclined to do so, and so while they may have a good selection, I will never know, because I don’t like having to put extra toolbars on my browser! If you are a myfuncards.com user, feel free to give your review in the comments section.