How Much Does EDDM Cost? The Real Math, Posted

Ask most print shops what Every Door Direct Mail costs and you'll get "request a quote." Here's the actual math instead: what USPS charges, what the work costs, and exactly what a slot on a shared Lake County card runs — posted, all-in, no phone tag.

EDDM Service Co · Concord Township, Ohio

The three costs inside every EDDM drop

Every EDDM campaign has the same three cost components, whether you DIY it or hire it done. Understanding the split is the difference between comparing real offers and comparing sales pitches.

1. USPS postage — fixed, per piece, same for everyone

EDDM Retail postage currently runs $0.26 per piece per the USPS price list. On a 5,000-home drop that is roughly $1,300 in postage, paid to USPS. Nobody can discount this: it is a government rate. Any offer that seems to "include postage" has simply folded the same number into its price, usually with a markup.

2. Print — the piece itself

The 9×12 shared card format exists because print cost scales with volume: one giant card printed once, carrying fifteen businesses, costs each advertiser a fraction of printing a solo mailer. On a shared card, your print cost is the cost of your panel, not the whole card. A solo 9×12 mailer printed at quantity runs several hundred to over a thousand dollars for the print alone and you carry the whole postage bill yourself, because you're mailing to every door alone.

3. The work — prep, paperwork, and the Post Office

This is where DIY campaigns quietly get expensive. USPS-compliant bundling in stacks with facing slips, the postage statement, Form 3587, and the physical delivery to the Post Office serving your routes. Bundles prepared wrong are rejected at the counter, and a rejected drop is a two-week delay. The work is real, it is detail-heavy, and it is why a local operator exists.

Posted prices: a slot on the Lake County Spotlight

EDDM Service Co runs shared 9×12 Spotlight cards to 5,000 Lake County, Ohio homes, fifteen slots per card, one business per category, enforced. Every slot is all-in for the work: print of your panel, USPS-compliant bundling, facing slips, Form 3587, and delivery to the Post Office. Postage is billed separately at actual cost, itemized on your receipt, never marked up.

Add your design (a $75 one-time panel design fee if you don't have print-ready art) and postage at actual cost, and you have the complete, honest cost of a drop. No quote calls, no "it depends," no discount theater.

EDDM vs. social ads: where the money goes

A $350 monthly social budget rents impressions from an algorithm that resells your audience to your competitor the moment your card stops running. The same $350 on a shared Spotlight card buys a physical presence in 5,000 kitchens that outlasts the drop by weeks, the card on the fridge is still working when the ad account has moved on. Repeat drops to the same routes are where the return compounds: the second and third drop is where recognition turns into calls.

We're not anti-internet, you found this page on it. We're pro-not-losing to businesses that simply showed up at the kitchen table first.

The honest fine print

• Postage is billed at actual cost, currently $0.26 per piece per the USPS price list, itemized separately. We never mark it up.
• Slots are first-paid; categories lock at booking. No competitor joins your card.
• Need art? A print-ready 9×12 file with 0.25 in. bleed, or our design team builds your panel for a $75 one-time fee — you approve the proof.
• Delivery is a window, not a date: typically one to three weeks after the drop, Tuesday through Saturday, with proof of the drop.

That's the whole cost picture. If a competitor's quote is vaguer than this page, ask them why.