It used to be you had two options to process mail. You either waited in line at the Post Office and kept inventories of stamps or you got a postage meter or PC Postage solution that might have hefty charges. There are now three ways that you can process mail through the Internet for free (or almost free) that we will go over in detail. If you are doing hundreds or thousands of dollars in mail per month these might not be the right solutions for you, but they may fill in some of the gaps. Here are the main places these solutions could helpful:
1. People working out of their homes or in small offices that do less than $100 per month in postage or need simple ways to process packages.
2. Travelling workers who need to post letters and packages while on the road.
3. Entities that have lots of locations and want to distribute postage to their field sites and control the expense centrally.
4. Starting on January 25, 2015, Postage Meters users will get a 7-78% increase on their Priority and Express Mail rates because the USPS will require a full address label with the barcode as shown below. Anyone who does not use these labels will only be eligible for the Retail rates (Vs. the Commercial Rates they get today), which are seven percent to 78% higher. These free solutions can meet these labeling requirements and maintain your current discounts.
I have done extensive research and spoken to all of these providers to better understand what their offerings can provide. The chart below is a full comparison of their features so you can see which will be most important to your application. Instead of going through each line on this chart, we are going to break the discussion into two areas so you can see what is best for you:
· Processing Packages
· Processing Letters and Flats
The impressive part in looking at all of the providers is the amount you can do online through their tools for free.
1. People working out of their homes or in small offices that do less than $100 per month in postage or need simple ways to process packages.
2. Travelling workers who need to post letters and packages while on the road.
3. Entities that have lots of locations and want to distribute postage to their field sites and control the expense centrally.
4. Starting on January 25, 2015, Postage Meters users will get a 7-78% increase on their Priority and Express Mail rates because the USPS will require a full address label with the barcode as shown below. Anyone who does not use these labels will only be eligible for the Retail rates (Vs. the Commercial Rates they get today), which are seven percent to 78% higher. These free solutions can meet these labeling requirements and maintain your current discounts.
I have done extensive research and spoken to all of these providers to better understand what their offerings can provide. The chart below is a full comparison of their features so you can see which will be most important to your application. Instead of going through each line on this chart, we are going to break the discussion into two areas so you can see what is best for you:
· Processing Packages
· Processing Letters and Flats
The impressive part in looking at all of the providers is the amount you can do online through their tools for free.
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