A Forever stamp now costs 82 cents. With Every Door Direct Mail, a 6.5 by 9 postcard, more than twice the size of a stamped postcard, goes to every home on a route for 26 cents postage, with no mailing list to buy.
RICHMOND, US. October 5th, 2026 – The price of a First-Class Mail Forever stamp rose to 82 cents on July 12, its eighth increase since the start of 2021. In August 2021, it cost 58 cents, meaning the price has increased 41% in under five years.
For small businesses that still rely on the mailbox to reach local customers, EDDM2GO says one USPS program has stayed far cheaper: Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM), where postage is 26 cents a piece.
EDDM postage is about 68% less than a letter stamp and 60% less than a postcard stamp, and the EDDM piece is the larger one. A stamped postcard can be no bigger than 6 by 4.25 inches, while an EDDM mailer must be flat, such as a 6.5 by 9 postcard or an 8.5 by 11 flyer. There are no names or addresses to buy: EDDM delivers to every address on the USPS carrier routes the business chooses, the route a single mail carrier walks each day.
“Every postage increase lands on the same people: the plumber, the dentist, the new restaurant trying to fill tables,” said John Hayes, operations manager at EDDM2GO.
“A stamp at 82 cents adds up fast before you print anything. EDDM gets a bigger piece into those same mailboxes for 26 cents, with no list to buy. For a local business watching every dollar, that difference decides whether they mail at all.”
The July increase raised USPS mailing services prices by about 4.8%. Along with the Forever stamp, the price of a stamped postcard rose from 61 to 65 cents and a metered one-ounce letter from 74 to 78 cents. In announcing the change, the Postal Service pointed to a severe financial crisis and continued rising operational costs, including transportation and fuel. For businesses that mail customer letters, statements or promotions with stamps, each round of increases raises the cost of staying in touch with the same customers.
Every Door Direct Mail works differently. It is a USPS Marketing Mail product built for saturation mailings: instead of addressing each piece to a named person, the business picks whole carrier routes and every home and business on them receives the piece, addressed to “Local Postal Customer.” Because USPS handles these mailings in bulk by route, the per-piece postage is a fraction of single-piece First-Class rates.
How Every Door Direct Mail works
- Pick the neighborhoods. A business chooses USPS carrier routes around its location, its service area or the neighborhoods it wants to reach. Each route has a known count of homes and businesses.
- Design one piece for everyone on the route. The mailer is a flat: longer than 10.5 inches, taller than 6.125 inches or thicker than a quarter inch, up to 15 by 12 inches and 3.3 ounces. The mailing side carries the EDDM postage indicia and the “Local Postal Customer” line instead of a name and address.
- Print, bundle and drop. Pieces are bundled by route with a facing slip on each bundle, listed on a USPS postage statement and taken to the Post Office that serves those routes. The local carrier delivers them with the regular mail.
Businesses can do the USPS steps themselves or hand them off. With EDDM Print Only, EDDM2GO prints the pieces and ships them to the customer, who completes the postage statement and facing slips, takes the mailing to the right Post Office and pays postage at the counter. EDDM Retail drop-offs are limited to 200 to 5,000 pieces per ZIP code per day. With EDDM Full Service, EDDM2GO prints the pieces, bundles them by route, prepares the paperwork and delivers the mailing to USPS, with postage included and shown as its own line.
“Most people who try EDDM once get stuck on the paperwork, not the design,” Hayes said. “Which Post Office, how many per bundle, which form. That is the part we take off their plate. A person on our team checks the routes and the artwork on every order before anything prints, so the mailing goes out right the first time.”
Lower postage only helps if the mail reaches the right neighborhoods. EDDM2GO’s free EDDM route map shows each carrier route with its count of homes and businesses and a demographics overlay. It gives an itemized price, with postage shown as its own line, before the customer enters any contact details.
EDDM2GO’s free ZIP code data tool adds Census demographics and carrier-route counts for U.S. ZIP codes, so a business can see where families, new movers and higher-income households are before it prints anything.
EDDM suits any business whose customers live or work nearby. Restaurants mail menus and opening offers to the routes around them. Roofers, HVAC companies, landscapers and plumbers mail seasonal offers to the neighborhoods they already serve. Dental and healthcare practices introduce themselves to new residents. Real estate agents mail just-listed and just-sold postcards to the routes around a property, and churches, schools and nonprofits announce events to their community.
Tips for mailing on a tighter budget
- Mail by route, not by ZIP. Routes in the same ZIP code can differ sharply in income, age and how recently residents moved in.
- Use the size you need, not the biggest. EDDM postage is the same for any qualifying flat up to 3.3 ounces, so the choice is about printing cost and message, not postage.
- Plan quantity in route-sized steps. The route map shows how many homes each route reaches, so a test mailing can be sized to a few whole routes instead of a round number.
- Lead with one offer. A single clear offer, a deadline and a phone number or web address work better on a flat than a crowded list of services.
- Plan more than one drop. Mailing the same routes again a few weeks later reminds people who kept the first piece, and with no list to buy, a repeat mailing costs the same as the first.
- Compare all-in prices. Ask whether postage, bundling and USPS paperwork are included. EDDM2GO’s EDDM pricing page shows both EDDM Full Service (printed, bundled and delivered to USPS, postage included) and EDDM Print Only (printed and shipped; the customer pays postage at the Post Office).
A worked example of real per-piece costs, postage and sales tax is in EDDM2GO’s guide, What EDDM Costs: Per-Piece Prices, Postage and Real Totals.
Businesses can see the homes on any carrier route, and the price of a mailing, free at www.eddm2go.com.
ENDS