Postal Categories – Letters vs Flats

These terms "Letter and Flat" have no relationship to what you might consider a "letter" to be or for a "flat" - no correlation to a shape or position. See Sizes & Categories for your Direct Mail Campaign for more detailed information.

Giant Sized Postcards and Large Folded Mailers fall under the "FLAT" category of the Postal Service (see blue shape drawing below). The postage is higher then letter or postcard mail. For Marketing (Presort) class postage, when in lower quantities 200-400 with low saturation coverage, like SOI or Client lists, these will experience the highest cost impact, while farming list which tend to be more saturated may be more manageable as far as the additional cost. For First Class postage, when in lower quantities less than 500 the postage alone can be $1.43 each.

Often more important is the other caveat with this larger size mail, the "In Home Arrival Date" is often longer than those other sizes. Even first class might take 3-10 days to arrive in home once entered into the postal stream. Keep aware of this when planning your campaign and or, if there is an event related to your mailing such as an "open House". At times we try to expedite the in home date by adding additional sorting and transporting to another facility.

Flats - are processed on a larger postal sorting equipment that runs slower than other postal machines as there are numerus sizes and dimensions processed on these machines. It also may incur more handling/sorting than other mail. We have also found that with regards to tracking only about 10%-40% of the postal sorting machines have tracking scanners on them that report to our server the actual scans.

Yet with the incremental postage alone being from $0.47 cents to $1.25 or more per piece, when compared to a smaller sizes, this size has its own share of benefits, too. With the almost the largest dimensions that can be mailed (15"x12" is max), there’s no question of the inherently increased visibility this size commands. If your budget permits, this is your surefire way to maximize your direct mail campaign results. For luxury marketing many use only these sizes.

There are some other ways to save using this size, often that will work when deployed for a farming list and then utilizing some different entry points with USPS we can at times, get the postage to only 10-15% more than letter rate. It is something that we can look at based on your specific needs. If you are Geo-Farming using a EDDM based approach then again the postage impact is significantly reduced.

Quick Note:
Where we see this card on the higher end of campaign cost is when deployed for list with a low count. For example if you have 147 clients on your SOI the postage alone for this card would be $1.43 each. This may still provide you with an good ROI, but reach out to us and we can review all options as well as run a Pre List Assessment so you can make the best decisions. Maybe adding 53 neighbors or other address can bring more value.