VTuber Birthday and Graduation Cards: A Guide for US Fan Projects
English-speaking VTuber fandom runs its projects on Twitter, Discord and Google Forms. Here is how to run one as a single card instead, what to do differently for a graduation, and how the options compare on the rows that matter.
The United States is second only to Japan for the number of VTuber channels, which is what Streams Charts found in its Q3 2024 report, putting the US share at about half of Japan's. And English-language fandom has built its own way of doing fan projects: a hashtag on Twitter, a Discord server for the organisers, a Google Form for messages, and one person who ends up editing a compilation video the night before.
It works. It also falls on one volunteer, and the messages from fans who are not artists tend to vanish into a form sheet nobody opens again.
The three occasions, and they are not the same job
Birthday
The date on the character profile. There is usually a countdown, an art hashtag, and a stream on the day. Your card is the thing they can scroll through on that stream, so send it before, not during.
Debut anniversary
The day they first went live as that character. This is the one where long-time viewers want to say how long they have been watching, which is exactly what a card full of dated, named messages is for.
Graduation
A creator retiring the character, usually announced a few weeks ahead with a final stream at the end. This needs a different hand. Advice from organisers who have done it:
- Do not schedule it for the last stream. Send it a day or two before, so it is not competing with the goodbye itself.
- Keep the cover plain. Balloons are wrong here.
- Let people write properly. A goodbye does not fit in a chat box moving at a hundred messages a minute, which is why most fans never say theirs.
- Do not make it a send-off for you. The card is from the community to them, not a thread about how sad everyone is.
What to use, compared on the rows that decide it
Details below come from each company's own pricing page, checked in October 2026. "Not listed" means we could not find it on that page, not that it is missing. Prices change, so check their site.
| What a fan project needs | Thankeeu | Kudoboard | GroupTogether (US pricing) |
|---|---|---|---|
| How many fans may sign | Unlimited, price unchanged by the number | Lite up to 20 posts, Premium up to 100, unlimited on Milestone | Unlimited messages |
| Voice notes from fans | Yes, on every card | Not listed | Not listed |
| Video messages | Premium and Pack cards | Premium and above | Not listed |
| Price | Classic $4.99, Premium $7.99 | Lite $6.99, Premium $9.99, Milestone $19.99 | $5.50 USD |
| Free to start | Create, share and collect free; pay once to send | Free trial offered; every board plan is paid | Card free with a money collection of at least $20 USD |
| Money from fans | Gift pot on the same card; contributor sees the fee first, recipient pays nothing to withdraw | Gift card attached to the board | Contributor fee 2.9% + $0.30, up to $2,000 a collection |
| Keepsake | Memory Movie with Premium | Slideshow on Milestone | Not listed |
Two rows do the work for a fan project. The post ceiling is the first: a hundred posts is generous for an office and tight for a fandom, and finding out at post 101 is a bad evening. The second is voice notes, which these creators do for a living, and which are on every Thankeeu card rather than a tier above.
If your project is collecting money, read the fee rows carefully on every option, including ours. The fee a contributor pays and the fee the recipient pays are different numbers, and some pages only mention one.
Practical notes from projects that went well
- Post the link, not a form. One link in the hashtag post, the Discord and the subreddit. Fans sign in a minute with no account, which matters for an audience that stays anonymous.
- Say when it closes. Give a date a day before you send, or messages arrive after it has gone.
- Read everything before you send. Most messages are lovely. You only need to catch the ones that are not.
- Let the art be art. Fan art uploads as an image on the artist's own message, so credit stays attached to the picture.
Start here
The VTuber group card page covers each occasion and what it needs. For the mechanics of signing, see online group card; for what it costs, pricing. There are companion guides for Japan and Indonesia.