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Between friends

Your group stopped exchanging gifts because the maths stopped working

Eleven friends buying for each other is fifty-five presents. A draw makes it eleven — one each, with a real budget — and everybody opens something.

Create our draw

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You are giving toIvy

Why friend groups give up on this

It is never a decision. One year somebody says it is getting expensive, the next year two people forget, and by the third nobody mentions it — not because the group stopped caring, but because eleven gifts is a project and nobody volunteered to run one.

A draw makes it one gift each, at a budget that can actually be twenty-five rather than five. The evening gets better and costs less, which is the rare combination.

The other thing it fixes is quieter. In a group of friends everybody knows who buys well and who buys late, and a free-for-all leaves those two people in visibly different positions. One named person each puts everybody on the same footing.

How to get it going

  1. 1

    Decide it in person, not in the chat

    A group message asking "shall we do something this year?" gets four replies and dies. Ask at a dinner and it takes two minutes.

  2. 2

    Add everyone

    First name, last name, email. Nobody installs anything and nobody creates an account.

  3. 3

    Mark the couples

    Two people in the group who live together should not draw each other — they will shop together and there is no surprise left.

  4. 4

    Send it and set the evening

    Everyone gets a private card. You see who has opened theirs, never what was on it.

Worth agreeing on first

A budget that suits the tightest month of the year
Say a range — twenty to thirty — rather than a ceiling. Somebody in the group is between jobs and will not say so, and a range lets them land inside it without explaining.
One evening, fixed early
A friend group in December has three competing dinners and two people leaving town. Pick the date before the draw, not after: it is the thing that actually kills these.
Plus-ones, in or out
Say it in the invitation. Partners who come to everything and partners nobody has met are two different cases, and the group knows which is which.
A brief, not just a number
"Something we can all try", "something from a shop you like", "something second-hand". A friend group is the one place where a constraint reliably produces better gifts than a bigger budget.

Common questions

How many people do you need?

Three is the minimum. With two there is no secret: each one knows they are giving to the other.

Can I stop two people from drawing each other?

Yes. Flag any pair and the draw routes around it. If the exclusions make a valid draw impossible, Pindao says so before a single email goes out.

Will I see who drew whom?

No. The matches are encrypted and never displayed, including to you as the organiser. Your dashboard shows progress only.

Do my friends need an account?

No. Each person gets a private link by email that works straight away. Only you sign in, and by email link rather than a password.

Half the group lives somewhere else now.

Then draw three weeks out rather than one, agree who pays for postage, and open on a call. It changes the planning, not the draw.

Somebody always forgets. What then?

Reminders go out on the schedule set by your event date. Beyond that, one spare gift in a drawer is what saves the evening, and it costs less than the awkwardness.

Eleven friends, eleven gifts, one evening

Add the names, mark the couples, send the draw. The rest is dinner.

Create our drawPindao