Digital invitation for a housewarming: the 5 best

The boxes are stacked in the hallway, the kettle is the only thing plugged in, and someone has already asked what time to come on Saturday. You know the date. What you don't have is a tidy way to tell thirty people the floor, the door and the fact that the toast is at half past eight. A digital invitation for a housewarming puts all of it on one page you can build and send today from the catalogue.

It isn't a PDF and it isn't a photo of a card in the group chat. It's a page with its own link, so everyone reads the same version of the plan and nobody scrolls back through forty messages looking for the address.

A digital invitation for a housewarming: the address goes first

Most of the confusion comes from one missing line. Write the street, the number, the floor and the door in full on the first screen, before anyone has to scroll. '14 Sun Street, flat 3B, buzzer 12' saves you half a dozen messages on the afternoon itself.

• The full address up front: street, number, floor and door, not just the postcode your phone suggests.
• A landmark you can see from the street. Maps struggle on new estates, so add the bakery on the corner or the green gate.
• Two separate times: doors at 7pm, toast at 8.30pm, so people coming from work don't walk in during the group photo.
• One line on what to expect: no furniture yet, paper cups, bring a jumper if the heating isn't on.

The best digital invitations for a housewarming survive a move

Replies land inside the invitation, in one ordered list, instead of spread across group chats, calls and a thread with your family. You set the RSVP questions yourself, so you ask for what you need and nothing else. If the sofa delivery slips and the date moves, you edit the invitation and the link stays the same. Nobody reprints an envelope or gets a second message saying 'ignore the last one'.

Guests open it in the browser on their phone and reply without installing anything. The same link works from a laptop at the office. You can add up to six photos of your own and swap any of them later: the kitchen with boxes stacked in it on the cover, the same kitchen with the table laid and the bread cut further down.

The invitation is the only place the plan lives. Change it there and everyone has the new version.

What a digital invitation costs: 29,99 EUR, paid once

One payment per invitation, no subscription, no monthly fee that runs out the week before the party. You can edit the cover in test mode before paying; when you buy, every scene in the invitation unlocks. There are no envelopes to count and no stamps, and if the toast moves to nine you change it in the editor instead of at the printer's.

When paper still makes sense

For the person who will pin it to the kitchen corkboard, keep a few printed copies. That's the sensible split: a link for everyone and a handful of prints for whoever keeps things. Your guests do need a phone, a tablet or a computer with a connection, since the invitation opens in a browser. If someone has none of those, that's exactly the person you hand the paper to.

Choose the design that puts the address on the first screen, gives you room for the photos of the flat and collects the replies in the same place. Send the link that same afternoon. A digital invitation from Send The Joy costs 29,99 EUR, the cover is free to try, and you can edit it after sending without resending anything.