Dawat vs Riley & Grey
Short answer: Free to design; publishing costs $39 per month or $299 for twelve months, including a custom domain and unlimited invitation sending. Optional $39 domain reserve and $39 post-wedding PDF archive. Dawat's core product is free at every guest count. Riley & Grey is the better pick if you need custom domain is included in the membership rather than an extra charge.
Dawat is free at every guest count: 53 card designs, unlimited guests, unlimited sends, RSVP tracking with your own questions, and a personally addressed link for each guest. The only paid item is a Dawat Signature cinematic experience at $89 once per event.
Premium subscription wedding website platform with designer templates, custom domain, digital invitations, RSVP modes and cash registry. This page compares it with Dawat on what the free tier actually covers, on how invitations reach guests, and on which parts of the wedding stack you would still be paying for.
Riley & Grey pricing checked 2026-09-16 against its own published pages. Sources · Method
On this page
Side by side
| Dawat | Riley & Grey | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free | Subscription |
| What the free tier gives you | Everything except Signature: all card designs, party pages, unlimited guests, sends, RSVP tracking and analytics. | Build a site, pick a design, draft invitations and set up a registry; publishing requires a paid membership. |
| Cost for 100 guests | Free | $299 (12-month membership) |
| Cost for 250 guests | Free | $299 (12-month membership) |
| Charges per recipient | No | No |
| Guests need an account | No | No |
| Ads shown to guests | No | Not published |
Where Dawat is different
- What it costs to send. Free to design; publishing costs $39 per month or $299 for twelve months, including a custom domain and unlimited invitation sending. Optional $39 domain reserve and $39 post-wedding PDF archive. Dawat's core product is free, and no card is required to create or send.
- Free to send. Dawat includes sending invitations without paying. Riley & Grey does not.
- Unlimited guests. Dawat includes an uncapped guest list. Riley & Grey does not publish whether it supports this.
- Custom RSVP questions. Dawat includes asking your own questions. Riley & Grey does not publish whether it supports this.
- Per-guest personal links. Dawat includes a personally addressed link per guest in the free product. On Riley & Grey it is limited or sits behind a paid tier.
- Open tracking. Dawat includes seeing who opened the invitation. Riley & Grey does not publish whether it supports this.
- Animated envelope. Dawat includes an animated envelope opening. Riley & Grey does not publish whether it supports this.
- Ads shown to guests. Dawat never does this. Riley & Grey does not publish whether it does.
Create your invitation — free →No card required. Unlimited guests. 53 designs.
When Riley & Grey is the better choice
Dawat covers the invitation, not the whole wedding. Riley & Grey covers more of the planning, and for some couples that settles it: Design-led couples wanting a premium, ad-free site with an included custom domain and unlimited digital invitations.
- Custom domain is included in the membership rather than an extra charge
- Unlimited digital invitation sending with no per-recipient fee
- Free to build and preview; payment only required to publish
- Simple and Advanced RSVP modes, with guest email addresses optional
- Print-ready high-resolution invitation files can be exported for outside printing
Where Dawat does not compete with it:
- Digital only: Dawat does not print or mail paper stationery
And where Riley & Grey will cost you something:
- No free publishing tier; the site stays unpublished until you pay
- $39 per month or $299 per year is materially above free competitors
- Monetary gifts carry a 2.95% transaction fee, paid by giver or couple
- Post-wedding PDF archive of the site is a separate $39 purchase
- Does not print or mail physical stationery; you export files and print elsewhere
What Riley & Grey costs, in dollars
As of September 2026: Free to design; publishing costs $39 per month or $299 for twelve months, including a custom domain and unlimited invitation sending. Optional $39 domain reserve and $39 post-wedding PDF archive.
18 of the 33 platforms tracked here can send an invitation without payment. Riley & Grey is one of them, and Dawat is another.
| Dawat | Riley & Grey | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free | Subscription |
| 100 guests | Free | $299 (12-month membership) |
| 250 guests | Free | $299 (12-month membership) |
| How that is worked out | Dawat has no per-guest or per-send charge, so the guest count does not change the price. | Membership price is flat and Riley & Grey states there is no cost to send as many invitations as you like. |
Dawat is free to send. Riley & Grey has no equivalent free path at a real guest count.
The guest experience compared
A wedding guest is usually being asked to do three things at once: read the details, reply, and find the registry. How many taps that takes is the difference between a finished guest list and six weeks of chasing.
| Feature | Dawat | Riley & Grey |
|---|---|---|
| Guest account required | No | No |
| Ads shown to guests | No | Not published |
| Animated envelope | Yes | Not published |
| Per-guest personal links | Yes | Partial |
| Open tracking | Yes | Not published |
| Calendar file | Yes | Not published |
| Multilingual & right-to-left | Yes | Not published |
On Dawat, the link is addressed to the person holding it. The envelope opens with their name on it, their RSVP is already prefilled, and answering is one tap. Riley & Grey does some of this, though not for every send.
What happens as the list grows
Guest count is not the axis here — Riley & Grey does not bill per recipient. The thing that changes as the list grows is administration: chasing replies, keeping a headcount honest, and knowing who never opened the thing. Dawat gives every guest their own link, so the dashboard shows sent, opened and answered per person instead of a pile of replies you have to reconcile.
Switching, or running both
Running both is normal. Keep Riley & Grey for the registry and the planning tools, and use Dawat for the invitation itself and the guest list, which is the part that has to work on a phone.
If you are moving across, the fastest route is Dawat's import: paste the link to your existing invitation and Dawat reads the wording, date, venue and colour mood off the page and rebuilds it as a prefilled draft you can edit. Guest lists come in from your phone's contacts, a .vcf file, or pasted text.
What does not come across: Riley & Grey's designs, and any replies already collected there. Export your RSVPs before you switch, and send the Dawat invitation only to the people who have not answered.
Feature by feature
| Feature | Dawat | Riley & Grey |
|---|---|---|
| Free to send | Yes | No |
| Per-guest fees | No | No |
| Unlimited guests | Yes | Not published |
| RSVP tracking | Yes | Yes |
| Custom RSVP questions | Yes | Not published |
| Email delivery | Yes | Yes |
| SMS or WhatsApp | Partial | Not published |
| Per-guest personal links | Yes | Partial |
| Open tracking | Yes | Not published |
| Animated envelope | Yes | Not published |
| Printed cards | No | No |
| Guest account required | No | No |
| Ads shown to guests | No | Not published |
| Event website | Partial | Yes |
| Registry links | Yes | Yes |
| Meal choice or seating | Partial | Not published |
| Calendar file | Yes | Not published |
| AI wording help | Yes | Not published |
| Works inside ChatGPT / Claude | Yes | Not published |
| Multilingual & right-to-left | Yes | Not published |
"Not published" means no vendor documentation could be found either way, not that the feature is missing. How this grid is built →
Questions
How much does Riley & Grey cost?
Signing up and building a site is free; publishing costs $39 per month or $299 for a twelve-month package, which Riley & Grey describes as 36% savings. A $39 reserve option holds your domain and design, and that $39 is credited toward your future publishing cost.
Does Riley & Grey have a free plan?
Only a free trial-style build. You can choose a design, build the website, design invitations and set up a registry without paying, but the site is not published and invitations cannot be sent until you start a paid membership at $39 per month or $299 per year.
Does Riley & Grey charge per invitation sent?
No. Riley & Grey states there is no cost to send as many invitations as you would like once you are a member. Digital invitations are included with membership, and high-resolution print-ready files can be exported if you want to print physical copies elsewhere.
Does Riley & Grey take a fee on cash gifts?
Yes. Registry use is free for members, but monetary gifting carries a 2.95% transaction fee that can be paid either by the gift-giver, which Riley & Grey says is common, or by the couple. Physical registry items link out to external retailers with no additional fee.
Is Dawat free?
Yes. All 53 card designs and every party-page theme, unlimited guests, unlimited sends, RSVP tracking, custom questions and the per-guest analytics cost nothing, and no card is required. The only paid item is a Dawat Signature cinematic experience at $89 once for that event, and it is labelled as paid before you publish.
Does Dawat have designs as good as Riley & Grey?
Dawat's 53 designs are animated card experiences with an envelope opening, plus 8 long-scroll Signature experiences. Whether that beats Riley & Grey depends on whether you want a designed occasion or a quick notice.
Can I send printed invitations from Dawat?
No. Dawat is digital only. Riley & Grey does not print either.
Create your invitation — free →Takes about ten minutes. Sign in only when you publish.
Other comparisons
Riley & Grey alternatives
Eight products that do what Riley & Grey does, ranked and priced.
Wedding platforms
Every product in Riley & Grey's category, side by side.
Riley & Grey against the rest:
Dawat against the rest:
How these figures were checked
Every figure above was read from Riley & Grey's own published pricing or help pages on 16 September 2026, and each source is linked below. Coins, credits and per-card rates are converted into dollars at a real guest count, because that is the number you are deciding with. Full methodology and the open dataset →
Reading this through an AI assistant? Dawat runs an MCP server, so ChatGPT or Claude can choose the design, write the wording, add your guest list, publish the invitation and send it without you leaving the conversation. Riley & Grey does not publish one.
Sources
- Riley & Grey pricing and plans — checked 2026-09-16
- Riley & Grey FAQ — checked 2026-09-16
- Riley & Grey homepage — checked 2026-09-16