Graduation Announcement Postcard Wording, Sizes and Design That Prints Clean
Five wordings you can edit and send, the size that keeps the cheap postage, and the layout rules a mailed card actually has to obey.
A graduation announcement postcard carries five things: the graduate name, the school, the degree or diploma, the ceremony date, and a party line if there is one. Print it at 6 by 4.25 inches on 14pt stock, which is the largest card USPS still charges the First-Class postcard rate for, and mail it two to three weeks before the ceremony. Move up to 5 by 7 inches only when a full-bleed photo is the reason you are sending it, and expect the letter rate on every piece.
Quick answer
Five facts on the front, the postcard rate on the back
Name, school, degree, date, party line. That is the whole announcement, and a card any busier than that stops being readable at 6 by 4.25 inches. Keep the card inside the USPS rectangle of 5 by 3.5 to 6 by 4.25 inches at 0.007 to 0.016 inches thick and every piece mails at the reduced postcard rate. Because a postcard has no envelope, put the ceremony on it and keep the house party address on an invitation that travels inside one.
Five Graduation Announcement Wordings You Can Edit and Print
Every announcement carries the same five facts. What changes is the voice around them, and the voice is what makes the card sound like your family instead of a template. Swap the names and the dates in these and they are ready to lay out.
1. Traditional, school-led. The safest option when the list includes colleagues, professors, and people who address you by your surname.
Marissa Elena Ortiz
Bachelor of Science in Nursing
The University of Texas at Austin
Saturday, May 16, 2026
2. Warm and parent-written. A single line of personality above the facts does most of the work.
Four years, two majors, and one very tired laptop.
Daniel Kwon graduates from Boston College
on May 22, 2026.
We could not be prouder.
3. Announcement and open house on one card. Front carries the line and the name, back carries the details.
Front: She did it. Amara Boateng, Class of 2026
Back: Amara graduates from Rutgers University with a BA in Economics on May 14. Open house Saturday, May 23, 2 to 6 pm, 118 Ridge Road, Metuchen. Come hungry.
4. High school, short and factual. Ceremony seating is usually ticketed, so this states the event without implying a seat.
Jaden Rivera
Lincoln High School, Class of 2026
Ceremony Friday, June 5, 7 pm
Memorial Stadium
5. Graduate school or a December finish. Late and non-traditional graduations deserve a card that admits the road was long.
It took six years and one pandemic.
Priya Raghavan, Doctor of Physical Therapy
University of Miami, December 2026
Thank you for every text that said keep going.
Two lines people forget. If you want an answer, write the reply instruction in full: a name, a phone number or email, and a reply-by date. If you would rather not receive gifts, say your presence is the present or no gifts, please plainly, because guests who are unsure will buy something anyway. Set both in the same type size as the address block, not smaller, or half the list will miss them. Print the wide announcement list as graduation postcards and reserve graduation invitations for the people you are actually seating.
Announcement, Invitation, Save the Date, or Thank You
Four cards, four jobs, and families routinely send the wrong one. The distinction that matters is whether the card expects a reply and whether it needs an envelope.
| Card | What it says | Reply expected | Envelope |
|---|---|---|---|
| Announcement | This person graduated, here is when and from where. | No, unless you add a party line. | Optional. A postcard is the cheaper, faster form. |
| Invitation | Come to this event, at this address, at this time. | Yes, with a named contact and a date. | Yes. The address of a house party should not be public. |
| Save the date | Hold this day, details are coming. | No. The date is the entire message. | No. This is the natural postcard. |
| Thank you | Naming the gift and the person who gave it. | No. | Usually yes, since it often carries a photo and a longer note. |
Read the envelope column before you order. A postcard travels naked through the sorting network, so the party address, a cell number, and a payment handle are visible to everyone who handles it. That is fine for a ceremony at a public stadium and wrong for an open house at your home. The usual split is a postcard announcement to the full list of eighty and invitations in envelopes to the twenty who are coming to the house.
The other two cards are cheap to add while a design is already open. Graduation save the date cards start at $19.77 and buy you a February send when relatives need to book flights, and graduation thank you cards also start at $19.77 and are far easier to order now than in the week after the party.
Sizes and the Postage Line You Should Not Cross
Size is the only decision on this page with a dollar consequence on every single piece. USPS charges a reduced First-Class postcard rate for a rectangular card between 5 by 3.5 inches and 6 by 4.25 inches, at a thickness of 0.007 to 0.016 inches. Cross any of those edges and the same mailing pays the letter rate instead.
| Size | Postage tier | Best for | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 × 3.5 in | Postcard rate | Save the dates with one line of text. | Too tight for a photo and a full address block on the same card. |
| 6 × 4.25 in | Postcard rate | The announcement itself. Photo on the front, five facts on the back. | Nothing, and this is the last size before the rate changes. |
| 5 × 7 in | Letter rate | Photo announcements where the picture is the reason to send it. | Higher postage per piece, and still no envelope for privacy. |
| 6 × 9 in | Letter rate | Announcement plus full party details on one heavy card. | Only sensible on a short list. On eighty pieces the postage adds up quickly. |
Stock matters for the same reason. 14pt cardstock measures roughly 0.014 inches, which sits inside the window and feels substantial in a hand. Anything close to text weight is under the minimum and gets treated as non-machinable, which is a surcharge on top of an already flimsy card. If you are checking postage against sizes before ordering, our breakdowns of postcard postage by size and rate tier and how to mail a postcard have the current tiers and the machinability rules in one place.
Design Rules That Survive a 4.25 Inch Card
A small card fails in predictable ways, and all of them are avoidable at the layout stage. Start with the back, because the back is where the constraints live.
The right half of the address side belongs to USPS: the delivery address, the postage, and a clear zone across the bottom right corner where the barcode is sprayed. Put anything in that corner and it gets printed over. What remains is a left column of about two and a half inches, which holds four comfortable lines of text and no more. Our address-side layout and clear zone rules show the exact measurements.
The front is yours. One photo at full bleed, the graduate name large enough to read at arm length, and the year. Set the name at 24 point or above and keep body lines at 10 point minimum, because 8 point script on a card that gets read standing at a mailbox is decoration rather than information. Script faces are the usual trap here: a heavy calligraphic name over a busy photo turns into texture. If you are choosing type, postcard fonts and how to choose them covers which faces hold up at small sizes.
Two production details. Extend the photo 0.125 inches past the trim on every edge and keep faces and text 0.125 inches inside it, or a cap will be trimmed off a graduate. And think about the finish: a deep navy or black full-bleed front looks striking on screen and collects visible white scuffs from the sorting rollers, so matte or uncoated stock is the safer call on a dark design while gloss stays cleaner on a light one. Start from a correctly sized layout in the blank template library and the bleed and safety margins are already drawn for you.
When to Mail, How Many to Order, and What Comes After
Mail announcements two to three weeks before the ceremony, and four weeks out if a real part of the list has to fly. Later than that and the card arrives as a receipt for something already finished. Earlier than six weeks and people file it and forget the date.
Count households rather than people, then add ten. One card reaches a couple and one reaches a family, so a list that feels like two hundred names is usually sixty addresses. The ten spares cover the returned pieces and the relative whose address surfaces late. At $16.48 to start, the surplus costs less than the rush reprint you would otherwise be placing in the last week of May.
Order the thank-you cards in the same session. The design is open, the return address is already typed, and June is exactly when you will not want to be setting up a new file. Then work backwards from the mail date: allow production time plus transit, and if the ceremony is in the third week of May, the file should be approved in the last days of April. The graduation printing season planning guide lays out that calendar alongside the banners and yard signs most families end up ordering too, and the full postcard printing range shows every stock and coating available for the announcement itself.
Wally explains the announcement postcard
Five facts, one photo, and a card that stays under 6 by 4.25 inches
Wally writes the name, the school, the degree, the date, and the party line. Nothing else fits. He measures the card against the postcard rectangle, because one eighth of an inch over the line and every piece in the mailing pays the letter rate instead. He keeps the bottom right corner of the address side empty for the barcode, and he leaves the house address off a card anyone can read. That one goes in an envelope.
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Common Questions
Your graduation announcement questions, answered
What do you write on a graduation announcement postcard?
Five things, in a fixed order that people read without thinking: the full name of the graduate, the school, the degree or diploma earned, the ceremony date, and a party line if there is one. A short opening line above the name gives the card a voice, and a closing line under it gives it warmth. Everything else, including the reception menu and the hotel block, belongs somewhere other than a 6 by 4.25 inch card. Announcements state a fact and invitations ask for a reply, so if you want an RSVP you have to say so explicitly with a name, a phone number or email, and a reply-by date.
Is a graduation announcement the same as an invitation?
No, and mixing them causes the most common problem in graduation mail: people show up to a ceremony that has ticketed seating. An announcement tells someone the graduation happened or is about to. An invitation asks them to attend a specific event at a specific place and expects an answer. Most schools issue a fixed number of ceremony tickets, so the honest split is an announcement postcard to the wide list and a party invitation to the people you can actually seat.
What size should a graduation announcement postcard be?
6 by 4.25 inches if you want the First-Class postcard rate, because that is the largest size USPS accepts at that price. The minimum is 5 by 3.5 inches, and the card has to be between 0.007 and 0.016 inches thick, which 14pt cardstock at roughly 0.014 inches sits comfortably inside. Go to 5 by 7 inches only when a full-bleed photo of the graduate is the whole point of the card, and price the extra postage across your list before you commit.
When should graduation announcements be mailed?
Two to three weeks before the ceremony for local recipients, and four weeks when a meaningful part of your list would need to fly or book a room. Announcements sent after the ceremony are still perfectly correct, especially for a December or a graduate-school finish, but they read as news rather than as an invitation to be there. If the party is on a separate card, mail both on the same day so nobody replies to one without knowing about the other.
Should the graduate photo go on the front or the back?
Front, and only the front. The back of a mailing postcard is divided: the right half belongs to the delivery address and the postage, and the bottom right corner has to stay clear for the USPS barcode. That leaves you a left-hand column roughly two and a half inches wide for a message, which is enough for four short lines and not enough for a photo. Put the graduate on the front at full bleed and keep the back to type on white.
How many graduation announcements should I order?
Count the households, not the people, then add ten. One card per address covers a married couple and covers a family, and the ten spare absorb the aunt nobody had the address for and the two that come back with a bad ZIP. A typical high school list lands between 40 and 80 households. Graduation postcards start at $16.48, so the difference between ordering exactly enough and ordering a comfortable surplus is usually smaller than a single reprint would cost.
Do I need to send thank-you cards afterward?
Send one to anyone who gave a gift, wrote a check, or traveled. The convention is within two weeks of receiving the gift, and the note has to name the specific gift, because a generic thank-you reads worse than a late one. Print them at the same time as the announcements while the design and the return address are already set up, and you will not be chasing a rush order in June.
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