How Mail Commingling Works — and Why It Saves You Money
Commingling combines mail from multiple mailers to qualify for deeper USPS discounts. Learn how it works and whether it is right for your volume.
How Mail Commingling Works — and Why It Saves You Money If you've ever gotten a quote from Mail Movers and seen the word "commingle" on it, you might have wondered what it means. Commingling is one of the most powerful tools in the presort world — and it's the reason small and mid-size mailers can access the same deep postage discounts that large national mailers get. Here's how it works. The Basic Idea USPS postage rates are tiered: the more work you do for USPS (sorting your mail closer to its final destination), the lower your rate. The deepest discounts go to mail that's sorted to the carrier route level — meaning USPS just has to put it on the truck, not sort it at all. The problem: to qualify for carrier-route sort discounts, you need a minimum of 10 pieces going to the same carrier route. Most small mailers can't hit that threshold on their own. A business mailing 500 letters per month might have only 1–2 pieces going to most carrier routes. Commingling solves this by combining mail from multiple mailers. Mail Movers takes your 500 letters and mixes them with letters from dozens of other customers. Suddenly, instead of 1–2 pieces per carrier route, we have 20–30 — enough to qualify for carrier-route sort discounts on a much larger percentage of your mail. The Discount Stack USPS postage discounts are additive. A commingled mailing can qualify for: Presort discount — for sorting to 5-digit ZIP or 3-digit ZIP level Automation discount — for using a Full-Service Intellige
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