Direct mail questions, answered plainly

It depends on the piece, the quantity, the mail class and the city it is going to, which is why we quote every job for its city instead of publishing a price list. Three things make up the cost: printing, mail processing and USPS postage. Send the size, the quantity and the city through the quote form and a written quote comes back, usually within a business hour, at up to 60% less than the big online printers.

The big online printers and full-service agencies fold printing, mail processing and postage into one blended per-piece price set at whatever the market bears. We print, address, presort and enter mail on one production line, run two postcard sizes instead of forty, and quote the three costs separately for your city and your job, so the markup has nowhere to hide.

Two: a 5×8.25 inch postcard and a 6×11 inch jumbo postcard, both on 14pt or 16pt cover stock in full color on both sides. The 5×8.25 mails as a letter-size piece to a list; the 6×11 mails to a list or, because it clears the EDDM length rule, to every door on a carrier route. Postcards are all we print.

No minimum for First-Class Mail, so you can send one postcard or fifty. USPS Marketing Mail, the cheaper class, requires at least 200 pieces per mailing because it is a presorted bulk rate. EDDM requires 200 pieces per mailing.

We print and enter the mail within two business days of proof approval. From there, First-Class pieces arrive in one to five business days, Marketing Mail in three to ten, and EDDM in three to seven. Plan on about two weeks end to end for a Marketing Mail campaign.

Not for EDDM, which reaches every address on the carrier routes you choose. For targeted mail you can upload your own list, or we build one from national consumer and business databases by geography, demographics, home value, business type or new mover status, with counts before you commit.

No. Everything mails under our USPS permit with our indicia on the piece, so you never pay permit or annual mailing fees. Nonprofits with their own USPS authorization can mail under it through us to get the nonprofit rate.

Everywhere the USPS delivers: all 50 states, Washington DC and the US territories, with dedicated pages for the sixty largest metros. Mail is printed at our production facility and entered into the USPS network for delivery anywhere in the country, and every job is quoted for the city it mails to.

Yes. Free editable templates are included for both postcard sizes, custom design is quoted with the job, and any artwork you upload is preflighted free of charge before it prints.

Because pricing is set for each city and each job. Postage sorting, delivery entry, quantity, stock and the mail class all move the number, so a single national price list would be wrong for most mailings. A written quote for your city takes about a business hour and costs nothing.

Printing in full color on both sides on the stock listed, CASS and NCOA address processing, de-duplication, presort, Intelligent Mail barcodes, addressing, the postage statement, USPS entry, and USPS postage itself, each stated separately. For EDDM it includes bundling, facing slips and delivery to the post office.

No. No setup fee, no permit fee, no annual mailing fee, no list-processing fee and no rush fee on standard turnaround. Optional items such as a purchased list, custom design or call tracking numbers are quoted separately and shown before you approve anything.

Yes. Printing and mail processing cost less per piece as the run grows, and postage falls slightly when a list is dense enough to sort to the 5-digit level. Tell us the quantity you are considering, or two quantities, and the quote shows both.

Usually within a business hour during business hours, and always within one business day. It is written, priced for your city, and carries no obligation.

Yes. Custom sizes, specialty stocks, inserts, large volumes and unusual formats are quoted the same way: send the specification and the city through the form.

A design (yours, a template, or one we make), a mailing list or a set of EDDM routes, a choice of postcard size and mail class, and the city. Send those through the quote form; the written quote and a proof follow, and nothing prints until you approve both.

A PDF at 300 dpi in CMYK with 0.125 inch of bleed and fonts embedded is ideal. We also accept Adobe files, high-resolution JPG and PNG, and Canva exports. Everything is preflighted free of charge and we tell you exactly what to fix if something is off.

Yes, always. A digital proof of the front and back, with the address block and indicia in place, is sent before production and nothing prints until you approve it. A printed proof mailed to you is available on request.

Every piece carries an Intelligent Mail barcode that USPS equipment scans as it moves through the network. We report the scans by ZIP code and day, so you can see when the bulk of the mailing hit mailboxes and time your follow-up.

Yes. Every job is saved with its design, list and settings, so a repeat drop is a quick confirmation. The list is re-run through NCOA before each drop so movers are updated.

Yes. We print and mail to every address the USPS delivers, in all 50 states, DC and the territories. The city pages cover the sixty largest metros in detail; a campaign to any other city, county or state works the same way and is quoted the same way.

Because the cost of a mailing is not the same everywhere: how a list sorts, where the mail is entered, how far it travels and what the local routes look like all change the number. We quote each job for the city it mails to rather than averaging every city into one price list.

Yes. A single mailing can include routes or lists in any number of cities and states, presorted and entered together, with a different version of the piece for each area if the offer or the phone number changes, and one quote covering all of it.

We are a national print-and-mail operation, not a chain of storefronts. Every mailing is produced at our facility and entered into the USPS network for delivery anywhere in the country.

Real estate, home services, dental and medical practices, restaurants, insurance and financial services, nonprofits, political campaigns, automotive and retail, in roughly that order, plus e-commerce brands that have adopted mail as a performance channel. Each has a program that works, described on its page.

Yes. Every industry page links to templates sized and written for that field, with the offers, formats, lists and cadence that produce results there. A quote request with your industry named gets a recommended program with it.

Yes. Healthcare mail is produced under a business associate agreement, financial and insurance pieces carry the disclosures your compliance contact approves at proof, and political mail carries the required disclaimers and is entered as USPS Political Mail.

Usually within a business hour during business hours, and always within one business day. The quote is written, priced for your city, and carries no obligation.

Yes. Agencies, marketing consultants and print brokers mail their clients' campaigns through us at wholesale pricing with white-label proofs and reporting. Ask on the quote form.