How to Lease a Postage Meter

Having your own postage meter is a great time-saving tool for any business. Having the ability to just print postage on the fly means you never have to worry about stamps. It also provides you with an opportunity to place a company motto, customer greeting or web address directly onto the postage. Here is how to easily lease your own postage meter.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Credit card for postage credits

How to Lease a Postage Meter

1. The first thing you will need to do is to select a postage service provider to subscribe to. The two leading options on the market for most small businesses are Stamps.com and the Pitney Bowes Personal Post Office. Both services cost $17.99 per month (plus postage) and come with a free digital scale. Pitney Bowes gives two months of free service to new members. Stamps.com only gives one month of free service, but also includes $25 of free postage when you open an account.

2. Select your postage meter. Both services provide you with a digital scale and postage meter, effectively giving you a personalized postage meter. You can either use the basic postage meter that comes with your account, or you can choose to spend a little extra money to get a more advanced postage meter. If you elect to buy your own hardware, make sure that it is compatible with the service you are subscribing to. Both Stamps.com and Pitney Bowes provide you with information on additional models that can be acquired to work with their service.

3. Using your credit card, register for an account at the service you want to subscribe to. You will be prompted at this time to purchase postage credits. You will purchase a certain amount of credit at a time, and your account is debited each time you print postage. When you run out of postage credit, you will need to replenish your account. You can either purchase credits at the time you register, or you can wait until your postage meter arrives. An initial purchase is less important with Stamps.com, since they provide you with a $25 postage credit right away.

4. Wait for your digital postage meter to arrive. It will also come with a special license, issued by the United States Postal Service, to use the machine for printing postage. It is effectively a postal license, making your postage meter an official postal location.

5. If your service allows you to use a personal greeting on your postage, program it into your scale. This can be the address of your company web site, a friendly greeting or anything you wish. When you are ready to print postage, simply weigh the item you wish to mail and let the postage meter calculate the postage. Then all you have to do is print the postage and stick it onto the item you are mailing. Your personal message will be shipped right along with your parcel.

Tips & Warnings

• Stamps.com customers can also use their “Photo Stamps” service, which allows you to make your own photos into stamps.