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I buy mine at the Dollar Store. They have them for .50, that's 2/$1.00. They must be recycled cards because they list for $5, $6 on the back, but are still 2/$1.00 at the dollar store. It's great because people don't know that they are really cheap cards.
I have had coworkers who worked for American Greetings in Cleveland and at Hallmark in Kansas City over the past few years. They have basically the same business model.
The individual cards cost the manufacturers pennies, no matter how fancy they are. They pump out thousands of each card and send them off to all kinds of retailers. In many cases, the retailers have a right to return the goods at the end of the season. At the end of the season, the retailers return what they cannot sell. The cards and other products are generally shipped to maquiladoras in Mexico where they are reworked where possible and sold. They get returns by the semi trailer loads. I am sure that at least some of those reworked cards make their way back to discount retailers (dollar stores, closeout stores, and the like).
If you ever work at AG or Hallmark, one of the benefits are the employee sales where people buy cards by the bags.
I do send birthday cards as a means of staying in touch with my younger relatives as I do not text them. Besides, everyone (except for some of the crabs on some C-D forums) likes to know that they are remembered. I no longer send Hanukkah and Christmas cards as I prefer to send letters. I do buy them on closeout.
All my cards are bought for under $1 and ONLY nice ones.
Frequently, Costco has a 'kit' of greeting cards at a good price. They're the fancier cards (would probably cost $4 each in the store, they have that homemade/scrapbooked sort of look), but they price out at less than $1 a card. I typically buy one box per year. There's a nice mix of birthday, non-specific 'congratulations', new baby, graduation, new job, and just pretty cards with no message.
I also often buy pretty or unusual/funny boxes of note cards at Marshalls or TJ Maxx, cheaply. Most recently, I got some note cards (blank inside) decorated with Andy Warhol paintings, and some with some really cute pictures of cats. Often, you can find something suitable here, for a birthday, thank you, congratulations, or thinking of you card.
Birthday cards can be expensive. I have about 12 birthdays to shop for a year (family members). Birthday cards go for $2 to $4 at Rite Aid where I used to buy them. I now buy them at the Dollar Tree. I get two for 99 cents. I also used to buy gift bags at Rite Aid for convenience/being lazy. 12+ of these a year can get pricey, too, so I get these at the Dollar Tree as well. I'm positive these get reused again by my family members so I don't write anything on the attached tags. What a guy!
I second trying the dollar stores. I try and get them there, if I can't find anything in the $1-$2 range (that I like) at retailers like CVS, etc.
However, I have become increasingly irritated about cards over the past several years. I used to be able to walk into a store and find a simple funny card to send to someone. I like to do that every so often, and I know my recipients enjoy getting them. These days though, it seems as if everything has a theme to it - birthday, get well, etc. I want a funny, yet simple "hey, how are you" card.
The one thing Im not really frugal on is gifts and cards. I have very few human contacts...people I could call friends and family. Just two friends and six family members...so I do not skimp on cards. I dont buy super-elaborate gifts and cards but I do put an effort into finding them and dont worry too much about the price when i find the "right" one.
I posted on another thread about tax refunds. I've set aside a portion of my tax refund for a years worth of gifts and cards for these folks. To me it's worth it.
I use portals to buy greetings and send them online to India. The best thing about Gifting Portals is; you can choose any card from a variety of cards and templates. They allow you to customize the cards using different tools and other features by which you can add pictures and texts.
Buying cards is one of the biggest wastes of money there is. No one really wants them, they usually get tossed in the trash the day they are received, and then consider how many cards people are "expected" to give - like 20 a year or so (a handful of birthdays, some holidays, some "special occasions", it adds up) - at $4/card that's around $80 over the course of the year. And for what? No one gets any value out of them (except the people selling them).
I haven't bought a card for anyone in years. No one seems to miss them, especially because I usually give the person a good gift instead. Take that $80 and buy something you (or someone else) will actually want instead.
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What a guy! 
