How Much Does Postcard Marketing Cost in 2026?

The Four Costs of Postcard Marketing

Every postcard campaign has four cost components: design, printing, postage, and fulfillment. Understanding each one — and how they interact — is the key to budgeting accurately and avoiding surprises. Some businesses pay separately for each component by managing vendors themselves. Others use all-in-one platforms that bundle everything into a single per-piece price. Either way, knowing the true cost of each layer helps you make informed decisions and negotiate better rates.

Let us break down each cost category with real numbers from 2026, then show you how all-inclusive pricing compares — and how to calculate whether your campaign will be profitable.

Design Costs

The design phase is where most businesses experience the widest range of costs — from completely free to several thousand dollars — depending on which route they choose. Here is how the four main options compare.

For most small and mid-sized businesses, the AI platform option offers the best combination of quality, speed, and cost. You get professional designs without the upfront expense or the back-and-forth revision cycles that come with freelancers and agencies.

Printing Costs

Printing costs depend on three variables: the size of your postcard, the paper stock, and the quantity you order. Larger quantities always bring the per-piece cost down, but you need to balance volume discounts against the risk of printing more postcards than you need.

Standard Postcard Sizes

The most common postcard sizes in North America and their typical uses are:

• 4" x 6" — The standard postcard size. Compact, cost-effective, qualifies for the lowest postage rates. Ideal for simple messages, appointment reminders, and high-volume campaigns where cost per piece matters most.
• 5" x 7" — Slightly larger with more room for imagery and copy. A good middle ground between cost and visual impact. Popular for service announcements and seasonal promotions.
• 6" x 9" — A significant step up in visual presence. Stands out in a mailbox. Great for real estate listings, event invitations, and campaigns where you want the postcard to command attention.
• 6" x 11" — The largest standard size. Maximum space for detailed messaging, maps, menus, or multiple images. Often used by restaurants, home service companies, and real estate agents. Higher cost per piece but also higher response rates due to the sheer size.

Paper Stock Options

Paper stock affects both the feel and durability of your postcard. The most common options are:

• 14pt card stock — The industry standard. Thick enough to feel substantial, holds up well in the mail. Suitable for the vast majority of campaigns.
• 16pt card stock — Noticeably thicker and more premium. Sends a subtle signal of quality. Worth the small upcharge for high-end services like legal, financial, or luxury real estate.
• UV coating (gloss or matte) — A protective coating applied to one or both sides. Gloss UV makes colors pop and photos look sharper. Matte UV gives a softer, more sophisticated finish. Either option protects the ink from smudging during mail handling.

Printing Cost Ranges by Quantity

Here are approximate per-piece printing costs for a standard 6" x 9" postcard on 14pt card stock with gloss UV front, based on 2026 commercial print pricing:

These ranges reflect online commercial printers. Local print shops typically charge 20 to 40 percent more due to lower volume and higher overhead. If you are managing printing yourself, online printers like 4over, PrintingForLess, or GotPrint offer the best per-piece pricing for standard sizes.

Postage Costs

Postage is typically the single largest cost in a postcard campaign. Understanding the available rate classes and how to qualify for discounts can make or break your per-piece economics.

United States (USPS)

• First-Class Mail postcards: $0.56 per piece. Delivered in 2 to 5 business days. No minimum quantity. Best for small, targeted campaigns where speed matters.
• USPS Marketing Mail (bulk rate): $0.30 to $0.35 per piece. Requires a minimum of 200 pieces (or 50 pounds), a USPS Marketing Mail permit, and presorted mail. Delivered in 3 to 10 business days. Best for larger campaigns where cost savings outweigh slightly slower delivery.
• Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM): $0.23 per piece. Delivers to every address on a postal route — no mailing list needed. Minimum 200, maximum 5,000 per day per zip code. Ideal for blanket coverage of a neighborhood but offers no household-level targeting.

Canada (Canada Post)

• Neighbourhood Mail (unaddressed): $0.16 to $0.20 per piece (CAD). Delivers to every household on a postal walk. Similar to EDDM in concept. No mailing list required. Minimum 500 pieces.
• Addressed Admail: $0.85+ per piece (CAD). Delivers to specific named recipients. Requires an approved mailing list. Higher cost but allows precise targeting.
• Personalized Mail: $1.00+ per piece (CAD). Full personalization with variable data. Highest cost but also highest response rates when combined with strong targeting.

In both countries, postage rates increase slightly each year. The rates above are current as of early 2026. The key takeaway is that postage alone accounts for 30 to 60 percent of the total cost of a postcard campaign, which is why selecting the right rate class for your campaign goals matters so much.

Fulfillment and Handling

Fulfillment covers everything that happens between having a printed postcard and getting it into the mail stream: addressing, sorting, bundling, applying postage, and delivering to the post office. This step is often overlooked in cost estimates, but it can add meaningful expense — especially in terms of your time.

• Self-fulfillment: If you are printing postcards yourself or ordering from a printer, you will need to address each piece (print labels or use a mail merge), sort by zip code to qualify for bulk rates, and transport the finished mail to the post office. The financial cost is minimal, but the time cost is significant — plan on several hours for even a few hundred pieces. Self-fulfillment makes sense only for very small campaigns.
• Print-and-mail services: Companies like PostcardMania, Vistaprint, and others offer combined print-and-mail fulfillment for $0.10 to $0.30 per piece on top of printing and postage costs. They handle addressing, sorting, and delivery to the mail stream. A good option if you already have your own design and mailing list.
• All-in-one AI platforms: Platforms like Magic Mailer bundle fulfillment into the total per-piece price. There is no separate fulfillment charge because the entire pipeline — design, print, address, sort, mail — is integrated. This is the simplest option and often the most cost-effective when you factor in the value of your time.

All-Inclusive Pricing: What Magic Mailer Costs

Magic Mailer takes a fundamentally different approach to pricing. Instead of charging separately for design, printing, postage, and fulfillment, everything is bundled into a single per-postcard price. You know exactly what you will pay before you send.

• Starting at CA$1.48 per postcard — this includes AI-generated design, commercial printing on premium card stock, postage, and delivery to the recipient's mailbox.
• No design fees. AI generates your postcard designs at no additional cost. Request as many revisions as you need.
• No minimums. Send 50 postcards or 5,000. There is no minimum order requirement.
• No subscriptions. Pay per campaign. There are no monthly fees, setup costs, or long-term commitments.

For businesses that value simplicity and predictability, all-inclusive pricing eliminates the mental overhead of comparing vendors, negotiating rates, and reconciling invoices from four different service providers. You set your budget, choose your audience size, and the platform tells you the exact total cost before you commit.

Calculating Your Cost Per Acquisition

The most important metric in any postcard campaign is not the cost per piece — it is the cost per acquisition (CPA). A postcard that costs $1.50 to send but generates a $2,000 roofing job is an extraordinary return on investment. A postcard that costs $0.50 to send but generates zero calls is infinitely expensive.

The formula is straightforward:

Cost Per Acquisition = Total Campaign Cost / Number of New Customers

Here is a worked example. Suppose you send 500 postcards at an all-in cost of $1.50 per piece:

• Total campaign cost: 500 x $1.50 = $750
• Response rate: 2% (the industry average for well-targeted direct mail)
• Responses: 500 x 0.02 = 10 leads
• Conversion rate: Assume you close 100% of inquiries for simplicity (in practice, this varies by industry)
• New customers: 10
• Cost per acquisition: $750 / 10 = $75

Is $75 CPA good? That depends entirely on your average customer value. For a restaurant where the average ticket is $40, acquiring a customer for $75 might not make sense unless they become a regular. For a roofing company where the average job is $8,000, a $75 CPA is exceptional. For a law firm where a single client might be worth $5,000 to $50,000, it is a no-brainer.

For context, here are typical digital marketing CPAs across several industries in 2026:

• Home services (Google Ads): $50 – $150 per lead
• Legal services (Google Ads): $100 – $400 per lead
• Real estate (Facebook/Google): $30 – $100 per lead
• Restaurants (social media): $10 – $30 per customer
• Insurance (Google Ads): $50 – $200 per lead

Direct mail CPA is competitive with or better than digital advertising in most local service industries — and the leads tend to be higher intent because the recipient took the deliberate action of calling or visiting after receiving a physical piece of mail.

How to Reduce Postcard Marketing Costs

Whether you are running your first campaign or your fiftieth, these strategies will help you get more results for less money.

1. Use AI design tools. Eliminating the $200 to $2,000 design fee is the single easiest way to reduce your campaign cost. AI-generated designs are now comparable in quality to professional freelance work, and they are included in the per-piece price on platforms like Magic Mailer. If you are still paying a designer for each postcard campaign, this is the first thing to change.
2. Target precisely. Sending 500 postcards to a tightly targeted audience will almost always outperform sending 2,000 postcards to a broad, unfocused list. Better targeting means higher response rates, which means lower CPA. Spend time refining your audience criteria — geography, home value, household composition — rather than simply increasing volume.
3. Test small batches first. Before committing to a 5,000-piece mailing, test your design and audience with 200 to 500 postcards. Measure the response rate, track which phone numbers or URLs are generating calls, and refine before scaling. A $300 test can prevent a $5,000 mistake.
4. Track your results. Use unique phone numbers, custom URLs, QR codes, or promo codes on your postcards so you can attribute responses directly to the campaign. Without tracking, you are guessing at your ROI — and you cannot optimize what you cannot measure.
5. Scale what works. Once you identify a design, audience, and offer combination that produces a profitable CPA, scale it aggressively. Increase the volume, expand the geographic radius, and mail consistently. The most successful direct mail marketers are not the ones who send one big campaign — they are the ones who send consistent, well-targeted campaigns month after month.

Postcard marketing costs are more transparent and controllable than most business owners realize. Whether you spend $150 on a small test or $5,000 on a large-scale campaign, the fundamental question is the same: does the revenue generated exceed the total cost? With accurate tracking and a clear understanding of the cost components outlined above, you can answer that question with confidence — and build a direct mail strategy that delivers reliable, measurable growth.