How Much Does EDDM Cost? Real Numbers for 2026

Most EDDM prices you see online are just the postage, which is maybe half the bill. Then the printer invoice shows up. So let me answer how much does EDDM cost the way I'd answer a buddy about to mail his first card: postage, printing, permits, real totals for common mailings, and a formula you can run on a napkin.

How much does EDDM cost? The short answer

Okay so here's the short version. EDDM Retail postage is $0.26 per piece as of the USPS price change on July 12, 2026, and it's still the price on the USPS price list as of October 2026 (Notice 123). Printing is the other big piece, and it usually costs about as much as the postage, or more. Put them together and a solo mailing of big cards runs roughly 42 to 78 cents a home on our price sheet, depending on the size, the quantity, and whether you do the Post Office part yourself.

Let me break it down.

EDDM cost per piece: postage first

The EDDM cost per piece for postage is simple. USPS charges one price for EDDM Retail flats, $0.26 per piece up to 3.3 ounces, no matter the size, as long as the piece qualifies. There are no annual presort or mailing fees for EDDM Retail (DMM 143.1.2), and USPS says no special mailing permit is needed (USPS EDDM page).

Two things make the postage bill bigger than people expect:

• You pay for every door on the route. You can't add part of a route to an order (per the EDDM User Guide), and USPS wants a piece for every delivery on the routes you pick. You can filter to residential deliveries only in the tool, which drops the business addresses.
• The caps. At least 200 pieces per mailing (per mailing, not per route), and no more than 5,000 pieces per mailing per day at one Post Office (DMM 145.1.2). So 10,000 cards in one ZIP Code means two drop days.

For perspective, a First-Class postcard stamp is $0.65 as of July 12, 2026. Mail 5,000 little postcards that way and you're at $3,250 in stamps, plus you need every name and address. EDDM puts a bigger card in those same 5,000 mailboxes for $1,300, no list required.

I tell people this all the time. No matter who prints your cards, there's no way around postage.

Printing: the other half of EDDM pricing

Postage is fixed. Printing is where EDDM pricing moves around, and it varies a lot from printer to printer, so get a couple of quotes. I'll use our own price sheet from 9x12 Method Printing, because I know those numbers are real. Two ways to buy:

• Print Only: we print and ship the cards to your door (3 to 4 days printing, plus 2 to 3 days shipping). You pay the postage and handle the EDDM paperwork, bundling, and drop-off.
• All Inclusive: printing on 14 pt UV gloss, packing, postage, USPS fulfillment, and shipping straight to the Post Office, plus tracking, photos of your prints, and extra samples for prospecting (4 to 6 days printing, plus 2 to 3 days shipping).

9x12 cards:

Quantity	Print Only	All Inclusive
1,000	$509	$779
2,500	$859	$1,649
5,000	$1,309	$2,999
10,000	$2,399	$5,799

6x11 community cards:

Quantity	Print Only	All Inclusive
1,000	$369	$619
2,500	$639	$1,449
5,000	$839	$2,499
10,000	$1,599	$4,899

Full transparency. You can find cheaper print-only prices out there, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. What you're paying for with All Inclusive is the postage and the whole Post Office side being handled for you.

Worked totals for common mailings

Here's what the full bill looks like, both ways. "Do it yourself" is Print Only plus $0.26 postage per piece. "All Inclusive" already has postage in it.

9x12 cards:

Homes	Do it yourself	All Inclusive	Per home (DIY / All Inclusive)
1,000	$769	$779	77 cents / 78 cents
2,500	$1,509	$1,649	60 cents / 66 cents
5,000	$2,609	$2,999	52 cents / 60 cents
10,000	$4,999	$5,799	50 cents / 58 cents

6x11 community cards:

Homes	Do it yourself	All Inclusive	Per home (DIY / All Inclusive)
1,000	$629	$619	63 cents / 62 cents
2,500	$1,289	$1,449	52 cents / 58 cents
5,000	$2,139	$2,499	43 cents / 50 cents
10,000	$4,199	$4,899	42 cents / 49 cents

What jumps out:

• At small runs, the gap basically disappears. At 1,000 9x12s, doing it yourself saves $10. At 1,000 community cards, All Inclusive is actually $10 less.
• At 5,000 9x12s, doing it yourself saves $390. You're trading that for an evening of bundling, a facing slip on every bundle, and a Post Office run. The EDDM drop-off checklist shows exactly what that involves.
• At 10,000 in one ZIP Code, it's two drop days because of the 5,000-per-day cap.

The All Inclusive prices assume your routes fit the print run and drop at one Post Office. Each extra Post Office is $25, and every door over the print run is $0.26. Not in any of these totals: design (free if you build it yourself in Canva) and your own time.

BMEU permit costs: when they actually matter

There are two versions of EDDM. Everything above is EDDM Retail, the one you drop at the Post Office. The other is EDDM BMEU, the bulk version entered at a Business Mail Entry Unit and paid with a permit.

The two fees are as of July 12, 2026 and still on USPS's October 2026 price list. On per-piece pricing, the USPS EDDM page says EDDM BMEU flats run "as low as $0.259 per piece." Notice 123 (effective October 4, 2026) shows where that number comes from: $0.259 if you enter the mail at the delivery unit, $0.268 at the destination processing center, and $0.309 with no destination entry at all.

Here's the thing. At its very best, BMEU saves a tenth of a cent per piece versus Retail. To earn back $780 in first-year fees on price alone, you'd have to mail about 780,000 pieces. And without a destination discount, you pay more per piece than Retail. So the permit is about rules, not price. It's worth it when:

• You want more than 5,000 pieces a day in one ZIP Code (BMEU has no volume limit).
• You want several ZIP Codes in a single mailing.
• Your pieces weigh more than 3.3 ounces, the EDDM Retail cap.
• You're a printer or mail house mailing for lots of clients under one permit.

And if a printer or mail house enters your mail under its own permit, those fees are theirs, not yours. For one card a month? Skip the permit. Use EDDM Retail or let someone else handle the drop.

EDDM cost calculator: the napkin formula

You don't need an EDDM cost calculator app. You need two lines:

Total = printing + (doors x $0.26) + extras

Cost per home = total ÷ doors

Here's how to run it:

1. Count your doors. Add up the delivery counts of your routes in the USPS EDDM tool or our free EDDM route planner, which shows a running meter against your print run.
2. Multiply doors by $0.26 for postage.
3. Add your printer's price for at least that many cards.
4. Add extras: design if you hire it out, and on All Inclusive any extra Post Office ($25 each) or doors over the print run ($0.26 each).
5. Divide the total by your doors. That's your real cost per home.

Example: your routes total 4,800 doors and you print 5,000 9x12s Print Only. That's $1,309 plus $1,248 in postage (4,800 x $0.26), so $2,557 total, about 53 cents a home. The 200 extra cards become prospecting samples. If you want help picking routes that fit your print run, here's how I choose EDDM routes.

Solo EDDM mailing vs one slot on a shared 9x12 card

Now the comparison most business owners never get shown. Instead of paying for the whole mailing, you can buy one ad slot on a shared card that's already going to those same homes.

Option	You pay	Homes	Per home
Solo 9x12, do it yourself	$2,609	5,000	About 52 cents
Solo 9x12, All Inclusive	$2,999	5,000	About 60 cents
One slot on a shared 9x12	$500	5,000	10 cents
One slot on a community card	$250	2,500	10 cents

Honest trade-off: solo, you own the whole card. Shared, you get one of about 16 slots. But for the price of one solo drop, a business could be on a shared card five months in a row. Still deciding whether mail is right for you? Here are the honest pros and cons in is EDDM worth it.

Postage is 26 cents whether one business pays it or sixteen split it. That's the whole trick.

And that trick is a business. An operator sells about 16 slots at $500, collects $8,000 up front, pays $2,999 All Inclusive, and keeps $5,001. Slot six covers the print bill, and everything after is profit. On a community card, it's 16 slots at $250, $4,000 in, $1,449 out, $2,551 kept. Here's more on shared postcard advertising, and on what to charge per slot.

Real cards don't always fill at sticker price, and that's fine. Leland's first card did $7,150 in revenue and $3,850 in profit after Facebook ads, some discounts, and two free spots. He went Print Only and handled the Post Office himself. Boring but profitable.

Full transparency. I teach the pricing and the full card math inside the 9x12 Method community, but you don't need it to price an EDDM mailing. The formula above is the whole thing.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does EDDM cost per piece?

EDDM Retail postage is $0.26 per piece for flats up to 3.3 ounces, as of USPS's July 12, 2026 price change. With printing included, a solo mailing on our price sheet runs about 42 to 78 cents per piece, depending on size, quantity, and whether you handle the drop-off yourself.

How much does it cost to send 1,000 EDDM postcards?

Postage for 1,000 pieces is $260. On our price sheet, 1,000 9x12 cards run $509 Print Only, so $769 total if you do the mailing yourself, or $779 All Inclusive. 1,000 6x11 community cards are $629 doing it yourself or $619 All Inclusive.

Do I need a permit to use EDDM?

Not for EDDM Retail. USPS charges no permit or annual fee for it. EDDM BMEU requires a permit imprint ($390 application fee) and a USPS Marketing Mail annual mailing fee ($390), both as of July 12, 2026.

Is there an EDDM cost calculator?

The USPS EDDM tool estimates postage for the routes you select. For the full cost, use this formula: printing plus doors times $0.26, plus extras, then divide by doors for your cost per home.

Is EDDM BMEU cheaper than EDDM Retail?

Barely, and only in the best case. USPS lists EDDM BMEU flats as low as $0.259 per piece at the delivery unit versus $0.26 for Retail, but BMEU adds $390 in permit fees plus $390 a year. It makes sense for big volume, multiple ZIP Codes, or heavier pieces, not for price.

How can a small business use EDDM for less?

Buy one slot on a shared card instead of paying for the whole mailing. A $500 slot on a 9x12 mailed to 5,000 homes, or a $250 slot on a community card mailed to 2,500, both work out to 10 cents a home, versus about 52 cents a home for a solo 9x12 mailing.

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Look, EDDM is one of the best deals in marketing. It just isn't free, and postage isn't the whole bill. Run the napkin math before you print and you'll never get surprised at the counter.

As always, I'm rooting for you. Peace.