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Letter of Thanks – Definition

A letter of thanks, or thank you letter, is a personal letter that is used when one party wishes to express appreciation to another party on a personal level.

So by definition, letters of thanks are most often written for personal situations as opposed to business situations.

In contrast, letters of thanks for business situations are most often referred to as appreciation letters, or letters of appreciation. Due to their business nature, these types of thank you letters tend to be written more formally than personal thank you letters. For more on business appreciation letters click here.

Sample Thank You Letters

The following letters of thanks templates are real-life examples of the types of thank you letters typically written to say thank you in personal situations.

Thank You Letter – after a job interview.

Letter of Thanks – to a friend or acquaintance.

Personal Thank You Letter – to a family member.

Real-Life Thank You Letter Templates

The thing that makes the above two thank you letter examples different from what you will typically find online is that they are “real-life templates”. In other words, they are complete, fully-formatted letters, written by professionals for actual real-life personal situations.

These are NOT your typical fill-in-the-blanks templates. They are complete letters that one can quickly learn from and adapt to fit one’s own situation.

When you need to write a letter of thanks or thank you letter, it is always helpful to have some real-life samples that show you exactly how a professional writes a letter for a similar real-world situation.