USPS EDDM Step-by-Step Guide to Sizes, Reviews and Costs
Every Door Direct Mail lets you reach a whole neighborhood without a mailing list. Here is the plain version: what EDDM is, which businesses it fits, how the postage saves you money, the postcard sizes that qualify, what it costs, and where to print it.
USPS EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) drops one postcard into every mailbox on the carrier routes you pick, with no mailing list. EDDM Retail needs no permit, mails up to 5,000 pieces per ZIP per day, and uses a flat postage rate below a stamp. Your card has to qualify as a flat, taller than 6.125 inches, longer than 11.5 inches, or thicker than 0.25 inches, so 6.5 by 9 is the smallest common size. Budget it as print plus postage plus a small mailing fee.
Quick tips
The fast version of a working EDDM drop
Design your EDDM postcard as a flat at 6.5 by 9 inches or larger so it clears the USPS letter limits. Pick carrier routes on the USPS map that match your customers, reserve the upper-right corner of the address side for the EDDM Retail indicia and the ECRWSS "Local Postal Customer" line, and lead with one clear offer. Budget the job as three lines, print plus postage plus a mailing fee, and let a full mailing service handle the counter so your only job is the artwork.
What is EDDM USPS (Every Door Direct Mail)?
Every Door Direct Mail, or EDDM, is a USPS program built for reaching a whole neighborhood at once. Instead of mailing to a list of names, you choose carrier routes on a USPS map, and the letter carrier delivers one identical postcard to every address on those routes. The piece is addressed simply to the "Local Postal Customer," so there is no data to buy, clean, or print per household.
There are two lanes. EDDM Retail is the small-business path: you can mail up to 5,000 pieces per ZIP code per day, pay postage at the counter, and skip the bulk mail permit entirely. EDDM BMEU is the higher-volume path that needs a permit but lifts the daily cap. For most local campaigns, EDDM Retail is the one people mean when they talk about "the post office direct mail" option.
If you want the plain-language version of who this fits and how the routing works, the companion guide on what EDDM is and whether it is right for your business walks through it, and 4OVER4.COM prints direct mail postcards that qualify out of the box.
What kind of businesses is an EDDM mailer good for?
EDDM rewards businesses whose customers live close to where they operate. If your service area is a set of neighborhoods rather than a niche scattered across the country, saturation mail plays to its strength: total coverage of the homes near you at a low cost per door.
- Local services. HVAC, plumbing, roofing, lawn care, and cleaning companies use EDDM to introduce themselves to every home in a service radius.
- Restaurants and food. A menu or a coupon that lands in every mailbox on the route is hard to beat for a new location or a seasonal push.
- Retail and grand openings. When you need the whole neighborhood to know you exist by a certain date, blanket coverage does that.
- Real estate and open houses. Agents farm a neighborhood by dropping the same card on every door, month after month.
- Healthcare and dental. New practices and clinics reach nearby households without buying patient data.
The one place EDDM is the wrong tool is a tightly targeted list, say, past customers or a specific job title, because it hits everyone on a route by design. When precision matters more than reach, a targeted mailing with a rented list fits better, and the guide on building or renting a mailing list covers that path.
EDDM benefits: postage savings
The headline benefit is postage. Because EDDM is pre-sorted to entire carrier routes, USPS charges a single flat per-piece rate that sits well below a First-Class stamp. You are not paying to route mail to scattered individual addresses, you are paying the saturation rate to cover a whole walk.
Two more savings stack on top of the rate itself:
- No list cost. Targeted direct mail usually means buying or renting address data and running it through cleaning. EDDM skips all of it, so that line item is zero.
- No permit fee for EDDM Retail. You pay postage at the counter without an annual bulk mail permit, which keeps small runs affordable.
The trade-off is honest to name: EDDM postage rules require a flat, which means a larger postcard than a standard 4 by 6. So the piece itself costs a little more to print, and the postage savings more than make up for it once you are mailing a full route. For the numbers behind response and return, the direct mail ROI benchmarks put real figures next to the cost.
Every door direct mail reviews: what senders actually say
Read enough every door direct mail reviews and a clear pattern shows up. The praise almost always lands on two things, and the criticism almost always lands on one.
What senders like. The reach is total, so a local offer reaches every home on the route with no gaps, and the cost per household is among the lowest of any print channel. Businesses that farm a neighborhood over several drops report that the repetition is what builds recognition, and EDDM makes that repetition cheap.
What they flag. EDDM is a blunt instrument by design. It saturates a whole route rather than a curated list, so if your best customers are a narrow slice, you are paying to reach neighbors who may never buy. The fix is route selection: choose routes that match your customer profile using the USPS map data, and the waste drops.
On the printing side, the reviews you can actually check are the product ones. Our direct mail postcards hold a 4.9 average across 64 reviews, and the larger oversized postcards people often use for EDDM sit at 4.9 across more than a hundred. When you compare providers, weigh both the channel reviews and the printer reviews for color, stock, and turnaround.
EDDM specs: postcard sizes
This is the rule that trips up first-time senders. An EDDM Retail piece has to qualify as a flat, not a letter, which means it must exceed at least one letter limit: taller than 6.125 inches, longer than 11.5 inches, or thicker than 0.25 inches. Meet any one of those and you are over the line.
That is why a 4 by 6 postcard does not qualify, it mails as a letter. The smallest common EDDM card rounds the short side up to 6.5 inches. Here is how the popular sizes compare:
- 6.5 by 9 inches. The most ordered EDDM size and the cheapest qualifying flat.
- 6.5 by 12 inches. A long, attention-grabbing format with extra room.
- 8.5 by 11 inches. Full letter-size space for menus, coupons, and photo-heavy offers.
- 9 by 12 inches. The large end of the common range, close to a brochure feel.
On the top end an EDDM flat can run up to 12 by 15 inches and 3.3 ounces. For the full size rulebook the every door direct mail postcard sizes guide lays every option out, and the roomier formats are built as oversized postcards at 4OVER4.COM.
What EDDM costs and how prices are set
EDDM cost is easiest to reason about as three lines added together. Keep them separate and the math never surprises you.
- Printing. Set by size, paper stock, quantity, and finish. A 6.5 by 9 on 14pt stock is the low end, a 9 by 12 on 16pt with a coating is the high end. Larger runs bring the per-piece print cost down.
- Postage. The USPS EDDM Retail rate, multiplied by how many pieces you mail. This is where saturation mail wins, because the flat rate is well under a stamp.
- Mailing service. If you would rather not bundle and drop the mail yourself, a per-drop service fee covers the counter work and paperwork.
Because those three move independently, the honest way to see your all-in number is to configure the real job. Our direct mail postcards price the print, the postage, and the mailing service fee live as you pick a size and quantity, so you see the total before you commit. Stocks run from 14pt to 16pt gloss, matte, silk, and high-gloss UV, and you can order it as print-only or as a full mail-and-drop service.
To sanity-check the spend against results, the postcard marketing benchmarks show typical response and return, and the successful direct mail campaign guide covers the offer and timing that move those numbers.
EDDM printing: where to go
Not every printer handles the EDDM specifics, so it pays to check three things before you upload art. A good EDDM printer should:
- Print a qualifying flat size. If the largest postcard on offer is 4 by 6, it will not mail as EDDM. You want 6.5 by 9 and up.
- Handle the indicia and endorsement. The EDDM Retail indicia and the ECRWSS "Local Postal Customer" line have to be placed correctly, and a good printer either drops them in for you or gives you a template that does.
- Offer a full mailing service. The difference between a print-only order and one that shows up at doors is the mailing service that sorts, bundles, and drops the pieces at USPS for you.
4OVER4.COM does all three in-house. You get EDDM-qualifying sizes on thick, mail-durable stock, the indicia and endorsement placed for you, and an optional mail-and-drop service so you never touch a counter. Compare finishes and turnaround on the postcards printing category, or start from the direct mail services collection for the printing-plus-mailing set. The general where to print postcards guide is a useful cross-check on what to look for.
Preparing your mailer, step by step
Once the size and printer are settled, a clean file and a clean route list carry the rest. Run the mailing in this order and counter acceptance is painless:
- Pick your routes. Use the USPS EDDM map to select carrier routes by ZIP, and read the household counts so your quantity matches the drop.
- Design to the flat size. Build a 6.5 by 9 or larger card in CMYK at 300 DPI, with a 0.125 inch bleed and a 0.125 inch safe margin so nothing important trims off.
- Reserve the indicia zone. Keep the upper-right corner of the address side clear for the EDDM Retail indicia, the ECRWSS endorsement, and the "Local Postal Customer" line.
- Lead with one offer. A saturation card works hardest with a single clear headline and offer, not a wall of copy. The 10 elements of a postcard that converts is a good checklist.
- Export and hand off. Save a flattened, font-embedded PDF and upload it. From there, choose print-only or the full mailing service and we handle the bundling and drop.
Not comfortable in a design app? The 4OVER4.COM online designer lays out the postcard in your browser with the bleed and safe lines already in place, and every file gets a human check before it prints. When the art is set, order your direct mail postcards in the qualifying size that fits your offer.
Specs and pricing
Direct mail postcard specs and live pricing
Once your file qualifies as a flat, here is what a made-to-order EDDM postcard gives you at 4OVER4.COM, with sizes, stocks, and price-per-unit pulled live from the configurator.
| Quantity | Price Per Unit | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | 17.9¢ | $89.68 |
| 1,000 | 17.1¢ | $170.53 |
| 2,000 | 9.35¢ | $186.95 |
| 3,000 | 6.84¢ | $205.13 |
| 4,000 | 5.58¢ | $223.31 |
| 5,000 | 4.83¢ | $241.51 |
| 6,000 | 4.56¢ | $273.85 |
| 7,000 | 4.37¢ | $306.18 |
Print it
Order EDDM-ready mail pieces at 4OVER4
Wally explains EDDM in one breath
One card, every door, no list
Wally thinks of EDDM like buying the whole block instead of picking houses. You choose the carrier routes, USPS drops your postcard at every door, and you skip the mailing list entirely. The catch is size: the card has to be a flat, bigger than a letter, so 6.5 by 9 inches is the smallest that qualifies. Budget it as print plus postage plus a small drop fee, and 4OVER4.COM prints a card that mails the first time.
Order direct mail postcards →See it in use
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Where to go next
By the numbers
EDDM printing you can count on at 4OVER4
Common Questions
Common questions about USPS EDDM
What does EDDM stand for, and what is it?
EDDM stands for Every Door Direct Mail, a USPS program that delivers one printed piece to every address along the carrier routes you choose. You do not need names, a mailing list, or, for the EDDM Retail tier, a bulk mail permit. You select routes on the USPS map by ZIP code, print a qualifying postcard, and the letter carrier drops it at every door on the route.
How much does EDDM save on postage?
EDDM Retail uses a single flat per-piece postage rate that USPS publishes, and it runs noticeably below a First-Class stamp because the mail is pre-sorted to whole routes. On top of that you skip the cost of buying or cleaning a mailing list. The exact rate changes with USPS pricing, so the honest way to see your number is to price the postcards, postage, and drop fee together in the configurator rather than trust a figure that may be out of date.
What are the EDDM postcard sizes?
The most ordered EDDM sizes are 6.5 by 9, 6.5 by 12, 8.5 by 7, 8.5 by 11, and 9 by 12 inches. All of them clear the USPS flat minimum. The 6.5 by 9 is the cheapest qualifying size, while 8.5 by 11 and 9 by 12 give you a bigger canvas for photos and offers. A standard 4 by 6 postcard does not qualify because it counts as a letter, not a flat.
What do every door direct mail reviews say about the channel?
Senders who review EDDM consistently point to two things: the reach is total, since every home on the route gets the piece, and the cost per household is low. The recurring caveat is precision, because EDDM saturates a whole route rather than a curated list. For grand openings, local menus, and neighborhood services that blanket coverage is a feature. On the printing side, our direct mail postcards hold a 4.9 average across 64 reviews.
How do I choose the right EDDM service?
Match the provider to three things: whether it prints an EDDM-qualifying flat size, whether it can add the indicia and ECRWSS endorsement to the file, and whether it offers a full mailing service so you are not sorting bundles at the counter yourself. It also helps to read the printer reviews for turnaround and color quality. Our direct mail postcards cover all three, and you can compare finishes on the postcards printing category page.
What does EDDM cost and how are prices set?
Think of EDDM cost as three lines added together: the printed postcards, the USPS postage for the number of pieces you mail, and a per-drop mailing service fee if a printer handles the counter work for you. Print price is set by size, paper stock, quantity, and finish, so a larger 9 by 12 on heavier stock costs more than a 6.5 by 9. Our direct mail postcards show the print, postage, and mailing fee live as you configure, so the all-in cost is never a surprise.
Where can I print EDDM postcards?
You can print EDDM postcards at 4OVER4.COM in every qualifying flat size, on thick mail-durable cover stocks, with the indicia and ECRWSS endorsement placed for you and an optional full mailing service. Because we print in-house, the size, bleed, and postage marks are checked before a single card is cut. Start with the direct mail postcards product or browse the direct mail services collection for the full set of options.
Get Started
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Pick a qualifying size, drop in your artwork, and we print a mail-ready postcard with the right bleed and indicia zone, then mail it to every door on the routes you choose.
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