Costs
USPS Every Door Direct Mail: a 5,000-piece budget example
A USPS Every Door Direct Mail budget for one 5,000-piece drop: a postage planning band, printing, bundling, and which lines are one-off or recurring.
What to take away
- A 5,000-piece Every Door Direct Mail drop costs about $1,300 to $2,000, or $0.26 to $0.40 per piece, and postage is most of it.
- USPS Every Door Direct Mail postage is set by USPS, not your printer. The postage line here is a planning band, so confirm the retail price in USPS Notice 123 on the day you order print.
- Route selection is freethe USPS EDDM route map filters carrier routes by ZIP code, household count and residential share.
- Design and proofing are one-off. Postage, paper, printing and bundling repeat with every drop.
- Budget leaks come from overrun print, routes chosen on ZIP averages, and second drops that never get planned.
What the range covers
Every Door Direct Mail is a USPS saturation product. You pay retail postage on every deliverable household in the carrier routes you pick, and you pay a printer for the flat itself. There is no list to rent and no address to validate.
EDDM drop cost breakdown
- $0.20 - $0.25EDDM Retail postage per piece
- $0.05 - $0.12Four-color flat printing per piece
- $0.26 - $0.40Total per piece
- $1,300 - $2,000Total for 5,000 pieces
The figures below describe one drop of 5,000 flat-size pieces into a single ZIP code. They are planning ranges for a budget, rounded and illustrative rather than a USPS quote, and the postage line follows whatever price schedule is in effect on your mail date.
| Line | Per piece | 5,000 pieces | One-off or recurring |
|---|---|---|---|
| EDDM Retail postage | $0.20 - $0.25 | $1,000 - $1,250 | Recurring |
| Four-color flat printing | $0.05 - $0.12 | $250 - $600 | Recurring |
| Heavier paper stock | $0.01 - $0.03 | $50 - $150 | Recurring |
| Trays, bands, route labels | $0.004 - $0.01 | $20 - $50 | Recurring |
| Design and proofing | Flat | $150 - $600 | One-off |
| Van delivery to the post office | Flat | $0 - $60 | Recurring |
| Total | $0.26 - $0.40 | $1,300 - $2,000 | Mixed |
Line by line
Postage dominates. The table carries it as a planning band; the price that applies is the one in the USPS schedule on your mail date, and it is paid for every household on the route, including vacant units. For the format and offer side of the piece, the direct mail marketing guide covers sizing and testing.
Postage vs printing costs
Postage
- Per piece
- $0.20 - $0.25
- 5,000 pieces
- $1,000 - $1,250
- Flexibility
- Fixed rate
- Applies to
- Every household
Printing
- Per piece
- $0.05 - $0.12
- 5,000 pieces
- $250 - $600
- Flexibility
- Most room to move
- Applies to
- Run size
Printing is the line with the most room to move. A run of 5,000 sits inside most offset shops' efficient range. Order 2,000 and the per-piece number climbs.
Bundling is cheap and mandatory. Pieces are banded by carrier route with the route label showing, and every piece faces the same direction.
Fixed against variable
One-off costs are design, proofing, first-time route research and the trays you keep. Recurring costs are postage, paper, printing, bundling labor and the trip to the post office.
One-off vs recurring costs
One-off
- Design
- Yes
- Proofing
- Yes
- Route research
- First time
- Postage
- No
- Printing
- No
- Bundling labor
- No
Recurring
- Design
- No
- Proofing
- No
- Route research
- No
- Postage
- Yes
- Printing
- Yes
- Bundling labor
- Yes
That split decides how you budget. A single drop carries the whole fixed load. Three drops across a season spread the design cost and lower the average cost per response.
What the tools do not include
The USPS route map is free and shows carrier routes, household counts and residential share. It does not give names, addresses or household-level targeting, because EDDM forbids addressed mail.
USPS asks for at least 200 pieces or 50 pounds per mailing and caps a mailing at 5,000 pieces per day per 5-digit ZIP Code. Confirm both in the current EDDM Retail guide.
Before the print date:
- Flat size and thickness checked against the current EDDM Retail guide.
- Chosen routes show the household count and residential share you expected.
- Trays, bands and route labels are on hand, not on order.
The route map also skips response tracking and any read on which routes pulled. USPS EDDM requirements cover size, weight, bundling and route minimums rather than creative. The offline campaign measurement guide shows how to tie replies back to a route.
Where budgets leak
Three leaks repeat. Overrun print on a route smaller than the run. Route choices made on ZIP averages instead of household count. Second drops cancelled because the first was never measured.
Undeliverable pieces are a fourth. EDDM mail is not returned, so vacant units and businesses you cannot serve are paid for and lost.
Price or savings claims in the piece sit under FTC advertising guidance and need substantiation before the run.
Example: one ZIP, 5,000 pieces
Four carrier routes in one ZIP, 5,000 deliverable households. Print $420. Postage at an illustrative $0.22 per piece comes to $1,100. Trays and bands $35. Design, first drop only, $300. Total $1,855, about $0.37 per piece.
Run the same routes and artwork again with a new headline. Print $420, postage $1,100, trays $35. Total $1,555, or $0.31 per piece, all of it recurring. If the flat carries a QR code, tag the landing URL so scans land as a named campaign, as the Campaign URL Builder documentation sets out.
