Want to jump straight to the answer? The best direct mail service for most people is PostcardMania.
Direct mail is an effective and affordable way to drive brand awareness and generate fresh leads. With it, you can put your message in people’s hands and target the streets and neighborhoods that matter to your success.
It’s an excellent opportunity for both new and established businesses to reach new consumers who otherwise may not see a company’s digital presence.
The 8 Best Direct Mail Services
There are dozens of direct mail services out there, so we narrowed it down to our top eight using an in-depth methodology.
- PostcardMania — Best for multi-channel marketing campaigns
- VistaPrint — Most postcard designs
- PsPrint — Most options for mailer type
- Gunderson Direct — Best for hands-off marketing campaigns
- Printing for Less — Best for targeting specific neighborhoods
- NextDayFlyers — Best for fast turnaround times
- Cactus Mailing — Best for coordinated Google Ad campaigns
- SaaSMQL — Best for SaaS lead generation
All of the companies on our list will print, stamp, and deliver your flyers, postcards, or brochures for you. Some services go further by providing design templates and helping you create a list of viable addresses.
Best Direct Mail Services Reviews
Below, you’ll find in-depth reviews of the benefits, drawbacks, and use cases for each of our top options. Read on to find the best option for your business.
PostcardMania — Best for Multi-Channel Marketing Campaigns
PostcardMania is great for high-volume postcard direct mail due to its excellent bulk discounts. It’s also a great option if you are looking to make direct mail one of many marketing channels.
More than 113,000 businesses rely on PostcardMania for a wide range of printing and direct mail services.
In addition to traditional direct mail services, PostcardMania also offers postcard design and printing, mailing lists, bulk mailing, EDDR (every door direct mail), and more.
Pricing for high-volume standard-sized postcards starts at just $0.05 per piece. You likely won’t find a better bulk rate in the industry. Other high-volume rates include:
- Jumbo Postcards – $0.10 per piece
- Colossal Postcards – $0.13 per piece
- Tri-Fold and Bi-Fold Brochures – $0.13 per piece
- Quadfold Brochures – $0.12 per piece
- Door Hangers – $0.09 per piece
- Full Page Flyers – $0.13 per piece
- Business Reply Cards – $0.09 per piece
- Business Cards – $0.03 per piece
While it offers stellar postcard and brochure mailing campaign offerings, where the company really stands out is with its Everywhere Small Business product.
This is a multi-channel marketing effort that includes direct mail. Beyond mail, you’ll also benefit from targeted Facebook follow-up advertisements, Instagram ads, Google follow-ups, and call tracking. It even includes YouTube ads.
Everything follows the same design as the mailers, giving your customers the same message throughout all your ads.
The Everywhere Small Business product tracks your direct mailing pieces using a proprietary barcoding system. This helps you figure out where the cards are in the mail, so you can prepare for new customers to arrive.
PostcardMania even targets the people who receive your promotions in the mail across digital advertising channels. It brings multiple campaigns together for lead generation and brand awareness.
For a limited time, you can get 1,000 postcards printed free with your first Postcard Mania order.
VistaPrint — Most Postcard Designs
VistaPrint is one of the most popular printing solutions out there. While it’s best known for business card printing service, it also offers a great direct mail postcard service.
It includes more than 1,000 postcard designs too—so it’ll likely have something that’s right for you and your brand.
Simply design your card, send in your list of addresses, and VistaPrint will handle the rest. VistaPrint has both standard and oversized postcards.
One other service we really like is that you can buy a targeted list directly through this platform as well. These lists can be targeted to audiences by demographic data, like income, hobbies, new homeowners, or even B2B-targeted industries.
VistaPrint is great because it has so many other products and services. No matter your marketing needs, VistaPrint has you covered. Some popular categories include:
- Promotional products
- Labels and stickers
- Bags and Clothing
- Signage
- Trade shows
- Marketing materials
- Business cards
Having promotional products available can simplify things for you versus using multiple companies for creating mailings and promotional products. VistaPrint delivers packaged candies, clothing, water bottles, pens, device chargers, and more products. You can use the mailer to promise promotional gifts to new customers, using VistaPrint for everything.
Standard-sized 4″ x 6″ postcards start at $72.98 for 50 recipients. But like most mailing services, the price per item gets better with higher quantities.
It’s $329.98 for 500 recipients, $1,469.99 for 2,500 recipients, and $2,622.99 for 5,000 recipients. This brings the price per postcard to $0.66, $0.59, and $0.52, respectively.
The rate drops below $0.50 per card with quantities of 20,000 or more.
If you want your mailing service from the same provider as your promotional products and printing needs, VistaPrint puts it all in one place.
For those of you who are environmentally-conscious and concerned about the planet, you’ll be happy to learn that 95% of the paper VistaPrint uses is FSC certified. This means that it’s sourced from forests that are managed responsibly, and therefore limit adverse impacts on the environment.
PsPrint — Most Options for Mailer Type
PsPrint offers a wide range of products available for direct mail.
In fact, it offers ten types of mailers to send to prospective customers. That’s much more than other services which often offer just one or two mailer options.
It’s also worth mentioning they offer mailing list processing (CASS certification, inkjet addressing, and postal resorting), foil stamping, die cutting, and even a graphic designer to work with you to get exactly the look you want.
PsPrint’s products include:
- Brochures
- Door hangers
- Flyers
- Magnets
- Newsletters
- Postcards
- Rack cards
- Sales sheets
- Stickers
- Gift labels
This is a huge variety of direct mailers they’ll send for you.
If making use of eco-friendly printing services is important to your business, PsPrint has multiple options available. PsPrint offers recycled paper stock for your mailings, if desired, as well as soy-based inks that still deliver the vibrant colors you want to see.
Additionally, PsPrint has printing facilities in a few different locations spread across the United States. This type of setup allows PsPrint to reduce the distance over which your products must travel, reducing the fossil fuel impact of receiving your order.
PsPrint offers a quick turnaround as well. In just two to five days after printing is complete, your order can be mailed.
The entire process can also be managed online. Just select your product, upload your artwork, and attach your mailing list.
PsPrint will even send you extra prints that weren’t mailed. The “overs” are free if they fit into one box.
For those of you who don’t have a mailing list, PsPrint will help you create one in less than 15 minutes. Just answer some questions related to your target market based on age, income, ZIP Code, and other details.
In terms of pricing, rates are based on the type of mailer, quantity, and production time. To help you get a sense of the cost compared to other options on our list, we’ll take a look at some standard-sized postcards.
For full-color front and back with five business days of production time, you’re looking at roughly $337 for 500 pieces. The total job would cost about $1,383 for 2,500 postcards and $2,635 for 5,000 postcards.
This puts the rate per card between $0.52 and $0.67, which is in the same ballpark as other options on our list.
The cost actually doesn’t jump too much if you expedite the turnaround time either. For example, 2,500 standard post cards costs roughly $1,560 for one-day production time—which is only about $175 more compared to the five-day production. That’s really not too bad if you need to get something mailed quickly.
If you want to get your hands on a finished product before you make a decision, sign up for a free Sample Kit from PsPrint.
For a limited time, you can also get 15% off your first purchase by providing PsPrint with your email address. Just head to the website, and wait for the popup prompt to appear.
Gunderson Direct — Best for Hands-Off Marketing Campaigns
Gunderson Direct is a full-service direct marketing agency. That means its representatives will work with you to create a fully customized direct mail campaign that’s perfect for your brand.
With more than 20 years of industry experience and over one billion pieces of mail sent, these reps give you everything you need to get the most out of your direct mail campaigns. Tap into their expertise to create mail campaigns that complement and work in conjunction with your marketing strategy.
You’ll start with a consultation with the Gunderson Direct team. As a full-service agency, Gunderson makes sure every aspect of your program is optimized for success—from testing to data, messaging, and offers.
From that consultation, you’ll get all the insights you need to build a successful program.
Gunderson Direct can help you create direct mail collateral from your in-house database as well as external sources. This helps ensure that your lists are highly targeted for optimal results.
Its award-winning design team will provide you with targeted, print-ready creative and its production expertise ensures you’re mailing out high-quality material. They even have an in-house copywriting team to ensure the phrasing of each campaign is optimized for success.
Other noteworthy highlights include:
- 98% client satisfication rating
- Strategic planning and data analysis
- Three-drop testing approach
- Mail delivery tracking
- Cloud-based custom dashboards
From start to finish, the company will take care of every aspect of your marketing campaign for you, making sure to consult with you as needed to make sure it gets the results you’re looking for. They really go the extra mile to ensure your mailing campaigns align with your big-picture business goals.
These services even include in-depth reporting and analytics so you can measure your success. That’s a rare offering when it comes to direct mail services.
You can also take advantage of a quick direct mail performance calculator to help you estimate the costs of your campaigns and the potential ROI.
Get in touch with the Gunderson Direct team to get a custom quote for your company’s direct mail needs.
Printing for Less — Best for Targeting Specific Neighborhoods
Printing for Less is a well-known and reliable direct mail service. It’s a one-stop shop for both printing and mailing.
The company offers a wide range of tools like free templates, direct mail tips, and integration with marketing automation platforms. They also have web-to-print for employees so they have easy access to sales and marketing collateral.
Where it really stands out is in the Every Door Direct Mailing (EDDM) service. This service helps you to determine a specific neighborhood or region that you want to target and make sure your mailers get to those houses.
Printing for Less helps ensure your direct mail campaigns reach the right audience.
While a few other services on this list offer EDDM (such as NextDayFlyers), none of them offer it with the amount of variety of mailer types that Printing for Less gives you. It’s perfect for promoting your restaurant or retail business’s opening day, local promotions, and other location-specific advertisements.
Here’s a quick overview of what you can get from Printing for Less:
- Postcards
- Catalogs
- Magnets
- Post-it Notes
- Presentation Folders
- Customer Letterhead
- Calendars
- Door Hanging
- Menus
This just barely scratches the surface of the options available, but it gives a good sense of the versatility offered.
Printing for Less also has a lot of experience working with political campaigns to make sure their mailers get out to constituents and potential voters. If you’re holding an elected office (or aspire to), we highly recommend going this route.
Another thing we like about Printing for Less is that their people really stand behind their product. If your mailing and printing aren’t on time, they’ll fully reimburse you for your incurred costs. That eliminates a lot of the anxiety that surrounds big marketing projects.
Before you start producing and mailing at scale, PFL will give you custom free printing samples. You can choose from different paper types, weights, coatings, binding options, and effects to see which one is the best for your business.
NextDayFlyers — Best for Fast Turnaround Times
True to its name, NextDayFlyers will give you an incredibly quick turnaround to make sure you get your mailers out quickly.
In fact, the company offers next business day printing turnaround. Although you will pay extra for this premium service, it’s an excellent option for time-sensitive offers and campaigns.
NextDayFlyers works with businesses across a wide range of industries, including dry cleaners, restaurants, real estate, banks, insurance, grocery, automotive, legal, and more.
It’s a top option to consider for any local business that relies on foot traffic from local customers.
With NextDayFlyers, your company can send:
- Postcards
- Brochures
- Mail rack cards
- Custom products
NextDayFlyers will store your inventory, verify addresses, presort your products, and send your mail. You can also rent mailing lists for campaigns as well.
Navigating through this platform is easy. Simply choose the size of your flyer, customize the cardstock, add a gloss or matte coating, and select your quantity. You can create artwork directly on their website or upload your own file.
Pricing starts at $0.54 per piece for 1,000 full color front and back postcards. This includes printing and mailing, with volume discounts available at 2,000 and 5,000 pieces.
NextDayFlyers is also an excellent choice for businesses seeking Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) solutions. This is perfect for mass postcard campaigns.
These work really well for grand opening announcements, weekend sales, and other special offers that are time-sensitive.
They offer four standard EDDM sizes to chose from, helping your mailers stand out from the crowd. But you can also ask NextDayFlyers to create a completely custom size for your EDDM postcards
You’ll see the cost for your direct mail campaign in real time as you continue to make changes.
One of the best parts about using NextDayFlyers is its emphasis on quality. Every order goes through 33 quality assurance checkpoints—including 15 during the pre-press stage, ten during the printing, cutting, and bindery stage, an additional eight checkpoints during the shipping stage.
All orders are backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee.
Cactus Mailing — Best for Coordinated Google Ad Campaigns
Cactus Mailing is a simple and straightforward direct mail service that offers great postcard and brochure mailers—along with a unique offering focused on Google Ads.
Where this brand really shines, though, is in its Smart Marketing product. This service helps you create a coordinated Google Ads campaign that compliments your direct mail campaign, driving better results. Doing so will increase response rates which boosts both leads and sales.
This program includes Google display ads along with landing pages to support your direct mail postcards and brochures.
This differs from the multi-channel offering of PostcardMania because Cactus focuses solely on Google Ads. PostcardMania offers Facebook and Instagram ads along with follow-ups.
Other top services include:
- Direct mail postcards
- Direct mail brochures
- Targeted mailing lists
- EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail)
- Addressable geofencing
- New mover mailing lists
- Mail piece design
- Call tracking
Some common industries using Cactus Mailing include dentists, restaurants, salons, spas, churches, real estate, retail, and fitness. Cactus excels at creating beautiful brochures to promote your business.
Another reason to consider Cactus Mailing is its great specials when you combine more than one service. The company runs these specials regularly, so you always have a chance to save.
They’re currently offering a free postcard design service for new customers. Rather than simply using a boring template and adding your logo, the design experts at Cactus Mailing will help you stand out from the crowd and create a design that specifically aligns with your brand and campaign goal.
SaaSMQL — Best for SaaS Lead Generation
SaaSMQL offers account-based demand generation for SaaS businesses. This is extremely unique compared to the other direct mail services on our list.
If your organization falls into this category, SaaSMQL should be a top choice to consider.
In most cases, direct mail isn’t associated with SaaS. But SaaSMQL has revolutionized the way you approach lead generation strategy by using direct mail to create leads and opportunities with mid-market and enterprise-level prospects.
One of its clients generated more than 50 qualified meetings using a direct mail campaign in less than two months. This generated over $2 million.
This success is attributable to SaaSMQL’s unique approach. Instead of just sending a flyer or a postcard, SaaSMQL sends packages to businesses.
This stands out compared to the hundreds of emails, calls, and junk mail these recipients get on a daily basis. Nobody is going to throw a package in the garbage without a second thought.
In addition to direct mail, SaaSMQL helps you with other account-based marketing campaigns and analytics. It has everything you need for SaaS demand generation across multiple channels.
How to Choose the Best Direct Mail Service For Your Business
Every direct mail service is unique. Finding the best one for your business isn’t impossible to do on your own, but can be a challenge. That’s why we created this list.
We studied six key areas to see how each service stacked up and narrowed down our choices based on the results. Use these criteria to find the right service for your specific business needs.
Industry-Tailored Solutions
A local mom-and-pop restaurant isn’t going to need the same services as a multi-million dollar B2B company. That’s why they shouldn’t go to the same place for direct mail services.
Research the industries each direct mailer targets. For example, Gunderson Direct focuses on telemedicine, B2B companies, and financial advisors. SaaSMQL is, as the name would suggest, a great choice for SaaS companies.
PostcardMania, on the other hand, helps any business that relies on postcards and brochures as part of its marketing efforts. These include AC and heating, restaurants, roofing, and real estate, to name a few.
When researching direct mailing services, be sure to see who some of their past clients are, too. Do they have solutions to target your specific customers? Can they effectively promote your offerings? If not, they’re not the right service for you.
Mailer Varieties
You may have specific marketing needs today, but what if those evolve in the future? You want to find a direct mailer that gives you options.
Common mailer types include:
- Postcards
- Flyers
- Invitations
- Greeting cards
- Brochures
- Newsletters
- Catalogs
- Booklets
- Custom products
A postcard might be more than enough for your business to promote something simple like an upcoming event or sale. But if you want to send out more detailed information about your organization, a brochure or catalog might be more appropriate.
A service like Gunderson Direct offers a wider variety of offerings that include letters, brochures, and more. They’ll even work with you to help plan out the most effective direct mail campaign for your brand.
Less commonly, companies like SaasMQL even send packages via direct mail for certain business types. Finding a service with diverse offerings may help you keep the same service provider no matter how your marketing efforts expand.
Of course, the converse is true, too. Some services, like PostcardMania, are limited in their offerings—but they excel at what they do. If you only need postcards or brochures and don’t anticipate that need to change anytime soon, choosing a service that specializes in that area is another good strategy to follow.
Eye-Catching Designs
When performing a direct mail campaign, it’s vital to grab the attention of the recipient. Think about all the mailings you receive each day. Having an eye-catching mailing gives you a better chance of standing out in a crowded mailbox.
The best designs enhance the message so the recipient can understand what you’re pitching in a matter of seconds.
While this can be a tough balance to achieve, a trusted direct mail service can pull off this balance, all while maintaining the unique look and feel of your brand.
Some services offer industry-specific templates. For example, PostcardMania has specific postcard designs for realtors. Templates are a great starting point when you don’t have experience with graphic design.
Although some mailing companies dictate things like the size and paper quality of the mailer, others provide more versatility. If you have a specific vision of what your mailer should look like, you will want some options for size, finish of the paper, and print quality. Make sure any specific images you want to include will render properly and still look good once the mailers get printed.
It’s worth noting that the price for their graphic design services could be separate from their direct mail service. For example, PostcardMania offers graphic design as a separate offering, while Gunderson Direct offers it as part of your whole package.
The wrong design choice can end up being a poor reflection of your business. So don’t gloss over this element as you’re comparing different mailing services side-by-side.
Supplemental Services
The best direct mail service companies offer additional marketing products to help support your direct mail campaigns. This can have a significant impact on your bottom line.
For example, PostCardMania also gives you an omnichannel marketing plan, including Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads, along with call tracking, follow ups, and mail tracking.
This is a cost-effective way to keep your marketing efforts centralized and focused. It’s also easier to work with just one company instead of trying to juggle multiple vendors at once and hoping they’ll work together in unison.
Keeping an eye on supplemental services beyond direct mailing is a great way to align your digital and traditional marketing strategies. This is crucial for businesses that require multiple touchpoints to convert customers.
When people see your flyers, along with digital ads and phone calls, your brand awareness will start to skyrocket. Keeping all of this under one roof helps ensure that your branding and message are both consistent for each campaign.
VistaPrint can whip up a ton of really cool on-brand promotional swag for you, like handbags, hats, or whatever else you think people will use. The point is to get your company name out there beyond simple mailers. Even if you don’t need every service a company offers today, it’s nice knowing it’s available and at your disposal in the future.
Turnaround Time
While this may not be the most important element to look for in a direct mail service, there are certain instances when businesses need to get time-sensitive promotional mailers out to customers.
It’s a huge waste of money if someone receives a mailer with an expired coupon. It’s also a poor reflection of your business in the eyes of the recipient.
When you’re evaluating the timeline, it’s important to understand that direct mailing companies are actually offering multiple services.
First, they need to design and print what you’ve ordered. But those materials still need to be mailed out and delivered. After printing, the typical turnaround time for mailing ranges anywhere from the next day to ten business days.
Some direct mail services give you the option to pay extra to get your mailers out faster. But we recommend finding a service that works quickly without any additional costs.
NextDayFlyers is a great option to consider if you’re looking for fast turnaround times.
Marketing Campaign Assistance
Blindly sending mailers to lists isn’t always effective. Even if you’re using a targeted list, you still need to have a strategic approach to your direct mail campaigns.
Treat this like any other marketing campaign that requires you to create a plan, monitor results, and measure the ROI. This is the only way to know if your mailers are actually generating dollars or if you need to pivot the strategy.
If you don’t have an in-house marketing team or you’re struggling to deal with this on your own, you can look for direct mail services that include marketing assistance.
Gunderson Direct is an excellent example. As a full-service marketing agency, they specialize in ensuring your campaigns are optimized for success.
Quality Assurance
There’s a lot that can go wrong with any printing service—including direct mail. From design flaws to ink smears and corners getting ripped during the cutting and sorting process, there are so many steps between your order getting placed and the mailers arriving to your target list.
The best direct mail services offer multi-point inspections throughout the printing and mailing process to ensure quality is held to the highest standard.
Trying to save a few hundred dollars on a company that doesn’t do this can end up costing you much more if the mailers don’t draw any business or potentially damage the perception of your brand.
NextDayFlyers, for example, offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee on its services. So look for these types of promises and quality assurance checkpoints when you’re evaluating different options.
Best Direct Mail Services: Your Top Questions Answered
The Top Direct Mail Services in Summary
Direct mail works really well in many situations. It’s easy to lose sight of this when you’re focused on email, online advertisements, and other digital marketing tactics.
PostcardMania is the best direct mailing service for most businesses. Regardless of your budget, printing needs, or direct mail strategy, you can find what you’re looking for using the reviews and recommendations in this guide.