Questions
Before you send the invitations.
Budgets, who can see a wishlist, and what happens if someone has not joined yet.
Elf Match is a free tool for organizing a Secret Santa or other gift exchange. You create an exchange, invite people by email, collect wishlists, optionally keep certain pairs from matching, and send each person a private assignment.
Yes. There is no paid tier and no card required to create an exchange or join one.
A draw needs at least three people who have joined. There is no participant cap. People with a still-open invitation are not included until they accept.
After creating your exchange, simply enter the email addresses of everyone you want to invite. They'll receive an email with a link to join your exchange. They can then create their account, add their wishlist, and wait for assignments.
Exclusion rules prevent certain pairs of people from being matched. This is useful for couples, family members, or anyone who shouldn't gift each other. When you set an exclusion, neither person can be assigned to gift the other. Our matching algorithm respects all exclusions.
Yes! When creating your exchange, you can set a minimum and maximum budget. This is displayed to all participants so everyone knows how much to spend. The budget is shown in the exchange details and on wishlists.
When at least three people have joined, you can assign Santas. The draw is random, never assigns someone to themselves, and keeps every exclusion. You preview the full list, and you can generate another set before confirming. Confirming emails each person only their own recipient.
As the exchange admin, you can preview all assignments before sending them out. However, once assignments are sent, each participant only sees their own assignment. This keeps the surprise intact!
Before confirming assignments, you can regenerate new random matches as many times as you want. However, once assignments are confirmed and emails are sent, they cannot be changed - so review carefully before confirming!
Yes, participants need to create a free account to join an exchange. We use passwordless login (magic links sent to email) so there's no password to remember. This ensures everyone's wishlist and assignment stays secure.
Absolutely! For each wishlist item, you can add a title, description, price estimate, and a link to where the item can be purchased (like Amazon, Flipkart, etc.). This makes it easy for your Secret Santa to find exactly what you want.
No. Your delivery address is only shared with your assigned Secret Santa - the person who needs to send you a gift. Other participants cannot see your address.
Your Secret Santa can update the status of their gift (bought, shipped, delivered), but you won't see these updates - it would spoil the surprise! The gift giver uses this feature to keep track of their progress.
Pending invitations are shown in the exchange overview. The admin can resend invitation emails if needed. You should wait until everyone has accepted before triggering the assignment, as pending members won't be included in the matching.
Yes. The exchange date is yours to set. The same flow works for an office draw, a family gathering, or any other occasion where people should not see the full list of pairings.
Yes, we take security seriously. All data is transmitted over HTTPS (encrypted). Delivery addresses are encrypted before being stored. We never share or sell your personal information. See our Privacy Policy for full details.
You can reach us at hello@elfmatch.com for any questions, feedback, or issues. We typically respond within 24 hours.