How to Use Presorted Postage Stamps
The United States Postal Service (USPS) offers discounted mailing rates in the form of precanceled stamps and presorted mailings to businesses, nonprofit organizations and any entity that has certain amounts of specific pieces of mail per mailing. The thresholds are 500 or more pieces of first-class mail, 200 pieces of standard mail or 50 parcels. USPS offers this discounted bulk mailing rate because the customer does some of the work in preparing and sorting outgoing mail and delivering it to a specific post office location.
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Instructions
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Analyze your company's mailing habits and ascertain if you meet the criteria for bulk mailing rates for presorted mail.
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Apply to the USPS for your mailing permit. This gives you permission to use the presorted bulk mail service. There is no fee for a mailing permit for precanceled stamps. These special stamps come in small denominations, often 10 cents. Customers apply these stamps to each envelope, and pay the difference between the precanceled stamp denomination and the bulk rate for the weight of the pieces when they drop the mail off at their designated post office. You will be required to pay an annual mailing fee at each post office where you drop your bulk mail.
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Organize your mailings so that they fit the most economical sizes of envelopes and qualify for the lowest mailing rates. To qualify for letter rate, your mailings must be rectangular, at least 3 1/2 inches high by 5 inches long by 0.007 inches thick and no more than 6 1/8 inches high by 11 1/2 inches long by 1/4 inch thick.
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Check the addresses on your mailing list and ensure that they are accurate and up to date. This avoids wasted postage and delayed or undeliverable mail. Use computer-generated mailing labels that can easily be read by USPS machines.
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Presort your mail by zip code. Use rubber bands to hold your bundles of mail together.
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Complete your online mailing statement and take your mail to your designated USPS office. If you are not using the online tracking system for bulk mailing, take your hard copy mailing statement with you when dropping off your mail.
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