A virtual gender reveal, on one link
Share a single address. Everyone you send it to opens it on their own phone, says whether they are coming if there is something to come to, and guesses pink or blue. The answer is not on the page until you decide it is — and when you unlock it, the reveal plays for every person who opens the link.
If all you want is a link that counts down and throws confetti, there are free tools that do exactly that and you should use one. This is the other thing: a page rather than a moment, which collects the guesses beforehand and is still there a year later as your child's first birthday invitation.
The answer is not on the page until you say so
This is the part worth understanding, because it is what makes a reveal a reveal rather than an announcement.
When you set the answer, it is stored on the server and withheld. It is not in the link, it is not in the page a guest downloads, and it is not sitting in the markup waiting for somebody curious enough to look. There is nothing to find early, because there is nothing there.
When you press the button, the page changes for everyone. From that moment the reveal plays for anybody opening the link, for a week — or until you move the page on to the birth announcement, whichever comes first. Somebody sent the link on day four still gets the moment rather than a static page with the answer already on it.
Guests guess, and the room can see itself guessing
Every guest picks pink or blue when they reply, and the tally builds as they do. They can see it. So can you.
That is the difference between a room that reacts and a room that claps. A guest who has committed to an answer has something at stake in the next ten seconds, and the ones who guessed right are named on the page afterwards.
Nobody makes an account to do it. They tap the link, answer, guess, and they are done — which matters, because most people who open your link will use this site exactly once and asking them to register is how a reply gets abandoned halfway.
Three reveals, and you pick which one plays
The same stage in each — three balloons rising, two handheld cannons at the foot of the frame — and what differs is what comes out and in what order.
One lets the balloons go in coloured mist with the cannons answering a moment later. One is seven quick beats over about eight tenths of a second, which is the most legible on a phone. The third fires everything in ivory and gold first, then the colour catches the falling paper in mid-air, so nothing on screen is the answer until it happens.
You can change which one plays after the answer is out. The reveal runs for a week, so a host who reveals at four in the afternoon can still change what everybody who has not opened the link yet is going to see.
It does not stop being a page afterwards
A reveal link is over the moment it is opened. This is an address, and it carries on.
The same URL becomes your birth announcement, and a year later your child's first birthday invitation. The design carries forward, and so do the photographs, the messages people left and the guest list — so the people who guessed are the people you announce to, without typing anybody's name a second time.
That is the whole argument for this costing something when a confetti link is free. If the moment is all you want, the moment is free. If you want the address, this is what it is.
Build one freeWatch a reveal play
Questions
Can my guests see the answer early?
No. The answer is held on the server and is not sent to anybody's browser until you unlock it — so there is nothing in the page or the link to inspect. That is a deliberate design decision rather than an obfuscation.
Do guests need an app or an account?
Neither. They open a link on whatever phone they already have, reply and guess. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, and no adverts.
What if people open the link at different times?
They still get the reveal. It plays for anybody opening the link for a week after you unlock it, rather than only at the moment you press the button — which is how a link actually travels through a family.
Can I do this without a party at all?
Yes. Turn off the sections you do not want and it is a page with the guessing and the reveal on it. The date, the venue and the replies are all optional.
Is there a free version?
You can build the entire page free — every design, every section, the reveal — and see exactly what you are getting. Publishing it at your own address is the paid step, and it is one payment rather than a subscription.
The rest of it
The reveal is one stop. The same address is also a gender reveal website with the date, the place and the replies on it, then a birth announcement, then a first birthday invitation — and if you are still writing the invitation, there is wording you can take.