An Elfster alternative for groups who will not all sign up
Updated for Christmas 2026
Elfster is good at what it does, and what it does starts with everybody making an account. If your group is twelve people, one of whom has not opened an email since 2019, a draw that needs nothing from anybody but a first name is the easier way round.
Secret Santa, €20 max
8 gift ideas ·Christmas ·1 already reserved
Coffee beans, whole
A bag from a roaster rather than the supermarket, if there is one near you.
A paperback for the train
Fiction. Surprise me — I have read almost nothing this year.
A bottle of red
Good olive oil
Twelve people, eleven email addresses and one uncle
Every online Secret Santa tool runs into the same wall in the first ten minutes. To tell each person their name it needs a way to reach them, and the usual way is an email address. So the organiser goes round collecting addresses: one person gives a work address they never check, somebody’s grandmother has none, and the colleague who started in September has to be asked twice.
Then the invitation lands and asks everybody to make an account. Most people do, grudgingly. Two will not open it until the week of the party, one finds it in spam, and the organiser spends December as an unpaid help desk. None of that is a flaw in any particular site; it is what a draw built on accounts and email costs a group that never asked for either.
The draw on this site skips the whole step. The organiser types first names and gets a private link per person, which they send however the group already talks: the family WhatsApp, a message each, a phone passed across the table. Nobody signs up and no address is ever typed, the same rule as the wishlist without signing up the rest of the site is built on.
How the draw works here, start to finish
It takes about as long as writing names on slips of paper, minus finding the hat.
- Type the names. One per line; first names are enough. Add a household after a comma, "Sam, Bennett" and "Alex, Bennett", and people in the same household never draw each other.
- Add a budget and a date. Both are optional and both appear on every person’s page, so the €20 cap is in front of whoever is buying at the moment they decide. A joke exchange can set the budget to zero and say so.
- Press draw, once. Nobody draws themselves and no two people draw each other, so a group of six never collapses into three swaps. If the households make a draw impossible, the page says which household is the problem rather than telling you to try again.
- Hand out the links. You get one private link per person. Each opens a page that shows that person one name, the one they are buying for, and nothing about anybody else.
- Everyone adds a few wishes. Through the same link, each person can write down what they would like. Their Santa sees it there; nobody else does.
The draw is written once and the group is frozen with it: no reshuffle, no late joiners. That is deliberate, and the Secret Santa generator explains why, along with the detail on households and budgets.
Elfster, this site and a hat, side by side
At the time of writing (October 2026), Elfster is free to organise and join, and it does a good deal more than draw names. The difference that matters for this page is the first step: Elfster’s help pages say everybody needs their own Elfster account, though one email address can cover several people, and invitations go out by email or as an invite link you can text.
Elfster also has a "Draw Now" mode for groups such as classrooms and offices, where the organiser draws straight away without collecting emails. In that mode, by Elfster’s own description, participants have no accounts, cannot see their own draw and cannot make wishlists. The organiser handles everything, which means the organiser knows everything.
| yourwishpage | Elfster | Drawing names from a hat | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account for each person | None, for anybody, the organiser included | Yes, one each (an email address can be shared) | None |
| Email addresses to collect | None; the site sends no email | One per person, unless you use Draw Now | None |
| How people learn their name | A private link, handed out by the organiser | A private email, and in their Elfster account | A folded slip of paper |
| Couples and households kept apart | Yes, by household | Yes, with exclusion rules | Only by putting the slip back |
| People not in the same room | Yes; a link works anywhere | Yes | No |
| Wishlists | On each person’s link, seen by their Santa | Yes, from any shop, alongside its own shop and gift guides | Whatever people remember to mention |
| Reminders and messages | None; the organiser does the chasing | Email reminders, and anonymous questions to your recipient | Whoever nags the group chat |
| How it is paid for | Free; no ads, no affiliate links | Free; Elfster says it normally works with brands that have affiliate programmes | Free, apart from the hat |
A hat is still the best tool when everybody is in one room on one evening. It fails at a distance, it fails when two cousins draw each other and swap under the table, and it fails the moment somebody pulls out their own name and the round starts again.
The same question for wishlists rather than draws is answered on the Amazon wishlist alternative page.
What Elfster does better, honestly
A comparison that only lists the other side’s costs is an advert. Elfster has been running gift exchanges for years, and it does several things this site deliberately does not.
If your group is happy to sign up, these are good reasons to use it, and nobody should feel they chose wrongly.
- It does the chasing. Elfster emails reminders to people who have not joined, so the organiser does not have to. Here, the organiser’s screen shows who has opened their link, and the chasing is yours.
- It carries messages. Participants can ask their recipient questions anonymously inside Elfster. This site has no messaging at all; questions go through the organiser or the group chat.
- It lasts beyond one December. An account keeps your wishlist and your groups from year to year, with apps for iPhone and Android. A draw here is deleted three months after its date, on purpose.
Handing out the links, and what to send with them
Send each link privately, one message to one person. The only real mistake is pasting the organiser page into the group chat, because that page holds everybody’s link.
Three messages cover it. Change what is in brackets and copy.
You are in the [group] Secret Santa. This link is yours alone: [link]. It shows the one person you are buying for and anything they have asked for. The budget is [amount] as a ceiling, and we swap on [date]. Add a few wishes of your own while you are there, and please do not forward the link.
Names are drawn. I have sent everybody their own link in a private message, so check your messages rather than this chat. Nobody needs to sign up or give an email address. If you cannot find yours, tell me and I will send it again; it is the same link, so opening it twice is fine.
Gentle nudge: your Secret Santa link is still unopened. Here it is again: [link]. It takes ten seconds, and whoever drew you is waiting to see your wishlist.
The organiser screen marks who has opened their link and who has not, which is how you know whom to send the third message to without asking the whole group.
What the organiser can and cannot see
Your own screen never shows a pairing, not anybody else’s and not yours. You find out who you drew by opening your own link, the same as everybody else, and the server never puts a second pairing on that page to leak by accident.
What you do hold is every link, because handing them out is the job and the site sends no email. So the honest version is this: peeking is possible, but it is a deliberate act, opening somebody else’s link, rather than a glance at your own screen. A tool that emails each person their result does close that gap, and it is the one real thing that collecting addresses buys you.
If the group would rather the organiser could not peek at all, ask somebody outside the draw to run it: a partner, a colleague in another team, the one friend who is not coming. They type the names, send the links and never need to open one.
The wishlist is behind the same link
A draw tells you who; it does not tell you what. Each person’s link has a box for their own wishes, a pasted shop link or a few typed words, and only the person who drew them sees it. They never find out which one was chosen.
Somebody who would rather keep a proper list, with photos and prices, can make one and send it to their Santa; whoever buys reserves under a nickname, so the owner never learns who. That one does need an account, for the person writing it and nobody else. The Secret Santa wishlist page covers how to write one inside the budget.
The example on this page is Jo’s list for an office draw on the 19th, €20 at most: whole coffee beans, a paperback, a bottle of red, olive oil, wool socks, dark chocolate, a desk plant and loose-leaf tea. The red is reserved by "Your Santa", which is the nickname trick: Jo sees only that one wish is taken, never which or by whom, and everybody else sees a name that gives nothing away.
For the rules worth agreeing before the draw, and a ten-question form for people who hate writing lists, see the Secret Santa rules guide.
What it will not do
Leaving out the email is a trade, and these are the parts of it worth knowing before the draw rather than after.
- No reminders. The site sends nothing, ever. The organiser’s screen shows who has opened their link; the nudging is up to you.
- No redraw. The draw runs once. If somebody drops out, start a new draw with the names that remain and tell anybody who opened the old link to ignore it.
- No late joiners. The group is frozen at the draw. A newcomer would have nobody to give to and nobody giving to them, so add the boss before you press the button.
- No account to recover. Keep the organiser link somewhere safe. It is the only way back to the list of links.
- Nothing kept for long. The draw and every link in it are deleted three months after the date of the exchange, or three months after the draw if you gave no date.
The family Christmas outside the draw, where everybody buys for everybody, works better as one shared list; the Christmas wishlist maker is built for that.
Is this a free Elfster alternative?
Yes. The draw, the links and the wishlists cost nothing, there is no paid tier, and there are no ads or affiliate links. Elfster is free too; the difference here is that nobody signs up.
Do participants need an email address or an account?
No. The organiser types first names and gets one link per person. Nobody, the organiser included, makes an account or types an email address.
How does each person find out who they drew?
The organiser sends them their link, by WhatsApp, text or however the group talks. Opening it shows one name and that person’s wishes. The Secret Santa generator page walks through the three steps.
Can the organiser see who drew whom?
Not on their own screen, which never shows a pairing, theirs included. They hold every link, so opening somebody else’s is possible; it is a deliberate act, and a nervous group can ask somebody outside the draw to run it.
Can couples be kept from drawing each other?
Yes. Give them the same household after a comma, "Sam, Bennett" and "Alex, Bennett". Siblings, flatmates and people who share a desk work the same way.
What if somebody drops out after the draw?
Start a new draw with the remaining names and send the new links. A draw cannot be reshuffled, because anybody who had already opened their link would be holding the wrong name.
When is Elfster the better choice?
When the group is happy to make accounts and you want the site to send reminders, carry anonymous questions and keep wishlists from year to year. At the time of writing Elfster does all three, and this site does none of them.
Can people still say what they want?
Yes. Each person’s link has a box for their own wishes, seen only by whoever drew them. Anyone who wants a fuller list with photos can make a Secret Santa wishlist and send it on.
