“Indicia” is a word that mailing companies use all the time, but it’s not a common word in other contexts. You might recognize a word that comes from the same root—indicate. An indicia replaces a stamp on professional mailing. It that “indicates” to the post office how a piece of mail is being sent and ensures that the right postage is being used. You may have seen it before. It looks like this:
An indicia is better than using a stamp, but it takes a little more work and planning beforehand than stamps do.
What is the benefit of using an indicia?
Once it’s set up, an indicia will make your mailing projects much simpler and save you time and money. The major benefits are:
- An indicia costs less in postage than an equivalent stamp
- It guarantees that you have the necessary postage
- It can be printed onto your mail piece directly, saving you the time and cost of adding stamps on after the fact
Who can use an indicia?
Anyone with a relatively large mailing project (with a mailing list of at least 200) can use an indicia. If you don’t do large mailings frequently, you can use a permit that First Class Services will set up for you. If, on the other hand, you work for an organization that sends out large mailings on a regular basis, you can register your organization directly with the USPS and receive a personalized indicia. Non-profit organizations must register with the USPS to take advantage of discounted postage rates.
What do I need to get started?
All you need to do to learn more about using an indicia for your project is to get in touch with us. We’ll fill you in on everything you’ll need, and can take care of most of the process for you.
In the meantime, if you’d like to prepare as much as possible, you will need a mailing list with at least 200 names on it. Postage rates will change depending on how many names are in your mailing list, how quickly you need to send your project out, and what kind of organization you’re working with. Also, every mailing list will need to be sorted to qualify for an indicia. But don’t worry—we take care of sorting the list and figuring out the best rates for your project. So just set up a clean, organized list in whatever order you’d like, and we’ll take it from there.
If you haven’t printed your mailing project yet, talk with us as well about adding the indicia directly to the artwork before it’s printed. This will save you the extra cost of having to run everything through a printing press twice.
