The Top 17 Direct Mail Companies

direct mail
Hailey Friedman

Recently, I was looking up some of the best leashes for puppies (just doing some casual research). A couple weeks later, I get this in my mailbox:

chewy direct mail campaign
A direct mail campaign from the ecommerce site for pet everything: Chewy.

Scary, maybe, but effective? Yes! I don’t even have a dog and I’m about to use that 15% off!

This is all to say: we might think direct mail is the thing of the past, but…it’s not! Though we’re well into the digital age, direct mail campaigns can see more success than digital campaigns.

Over the past few years, companies like LendingClub, Casper,  Everlane, and yes, Chewy, have all figured out how to perfect their direct mail campaigns, allowing them to engage with customers that might not see their traditional digital marketing and double down on people that have seen their other forms of marketing.

In 2018, direct mail campaigns saw a 9% response rate. When compared to email, paid search, and social media’s 1% return, direct mail doesn’t look too shabby.

Plus with our dwindling mailboxes (and increasingly overwhelming inboxes) direct mail campaigns are a unique way to expand your reach and keep people thinking about your ad long after they’ve read it. By putting yourself literally into the palm of your customer’s hand, you’re taking a risk that a lot of companies have been rewarded for.

And, good news! We’ve reviewed the best direct mail companies in the game, so you can choose the one that’s right for you. We compare them based on years of experience, client roster, and our personal experience with them (when applicable).

The Best Direct Mail Companies in 2021

1. Gunderson Direct

Star Rating

5 out of 5

Services Offered

Mail with confidence when you work with Gunderson Direct. Having been in the direct mail business for over 18 years (with over 1.5 billion pieces of mail sent), they know a quite a bit about making mail work for clients across America (and internationally).

Gunderson Direct goes beyond offering top notch direct mail services – they offer a strategic partnership to help you continuously iterate and improve your campaigns.

Gunderson Direct offers clients a full-service, turn-key direct mail solution, or a la carte services including:

  • Strategic Expertise: Years of experience allows them to put together winning programs that hedge for success.
  • Creative Thought Leadership: They deliver creative that gets response while also supporting your brand and aiding awareness.
  • Responsive Data and List Sourcing: Gunderson Direct is data agnostic and will leverage their vast network of data providers to ensure you are mailing to the right audience for your product or service.
  • Production and Mailing:  Direct mail is a manufacturing process. Depend on Gunderson Direct to insure your mail is produced with the highest quality in mind, while maintaining budgets and sticking to timelines.
  • Insightful Analytics: Their data team measures each campaign and provides actionable next steps to enhance the response of future mailings.

Pricing

Pricing is customized for each program based on campaign size, services needed and program goals. 

Pros

  • Top-notch client list. You’ll be in good company with the likes of Personal Capital, One Medical, AAA, ZipRecruiter, plus numerous startups, nonprofits and technology companies.
  • Agency-style service that can handle any or every part of your mail campaign. Services include program and test strategy, creative development, audience selection and segmentation, managing print production and personalization, and follow-up campaign analytics.
  • Creative leadership that focus on direct response. Creative and messaging support brand positioning while also getting prospects to take action and convert!
  • Serious direct mail know-how. This team is the best in the business, bar none. Over 17 years of experience in virtually every category makes them a leader among direct mail agencies and service providers.
  • ROI focused strategy that delivers results. They say that over 80% of the clients they onboard that are new to the direct mail channel can scale their programs significantly within 3 months. See if direct mail can work for your company – you can model your estimated ROI and CAC using their handy direct mail calculator found here.

Cons 

  • Campaigns can get pricey as minimums are high. An average engagement with Gunderson Direct can range $50,000 – $150,000. But this is economical for a full-service agency model.

Link

2. SeQuel Response

Star Rating:

5 out of 5

Services Offered:

Whether you’re looking to build a new campaign from scratch, improve an existing campaign, or integrate mail into your digital marketing strategy, SeQuel Response can help take your direct mail programs to the next level of growth. What makes them unique from other direct response agencies is their proprietary, data-driven approach to audience targeting and program testing, and their keen ability to integrate digital and direct mail programs together.

SeQuel’s full suite of in-house services have helped hundreds of brands effectively launch and scale direct mail campaigns. Their areas of specialty include:

  • Research: critical process to successful campaign design, execution, and scale
  • Testing: proprietary testing methodology to quickly identify the winning list, offer, and creative combination – for less
  • Data: a data-agnostic approach to modeling and list building
  • Digital Integration: coordinating digital and direct mail strategies to boost response and reduce acquisition costs
  • Creative: expert writers, designers, and offer strategists to ensure maximum response
  • Execution: strategic media-buying and delivery methods to minimize costs
  • Reports/Analytics: actionable insights to optimize campaign performance

Pricing:

SeQuel’s campaign costs can be tailored to your budget and growth goals. Contact them directly for a quote.

Pros:

  • A solid team of experienced direct response marketers and a track record of producing and performing direct mail programs.
  • Their proprietary testing approach combines the best of A/B and multivariate testing for quick, accurate, and cost-effective results.
  • Integrated digital marketing strategies boost campaign performance by reaching the right audience, on the right channel, at the right time.
  • Their data agnostic approach leverages real-world competition to build unique models based on several data sets and data partners.
  • Creative flexibility so clients are not limited to only postcards or letter packages.  

Cons:

  • Minimum volume threshold of 100,000. But they do offer triggered-based, automated services for smaller mailers.

Link

3. greetabl

greetabl logo

Star Rating

5 out of 5

Services Offered

Greetabl has created systematized a way to send unique and personalized gifts at scale, in a way that is more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen done in the direct mail space. Plus, you can do it for under $15/box! 

To be honest, I stumbled across Greetabl as a way to send small, personalized gift boxes to friends for their birthdays. But when I discovered that I could use them to send out branded gift boxes at scale for my business, I was beyond excited. 

I love it because you can choose the design of the box (even design it yourself), include a logo card, write a customized message and even include unique photos within each box. Check out the screenshot below to see what I mean…

Greetabl’s corporate gift offering allows you to send gifts your clients will love. Features include:

  • Insanely easy large or small orders
  • Pick from their design catalogue or design your own
  • Work with your own dedicated account rep or send them self-serve
  • Upload personal photos and craft a special message

Pricing

You can easily send a Greetabl box for as little as $12 depending on the gift or gift card you choose to include in your box. Plus, I negotiated a special offer for GMP readers, use promo code: GROWTH15 for 15% off. 🙂

Additionally, there are a few different pricing tiers if you want to use Greetabl for business or if you want access to special features.

Pros

  • Perfectly priced: send the love without breaking the bank. I’ve used Greetabl to send hundreds of gift boxes to clients for $15/box.
  • Make someone’s day in minutes.
  • All of the thought, none of the effort.
  • A slew of awesome gifts and gift cards to choose from that you can include.
  • Get alerts as each package is sent and received

Cons 

  • I can’t think of a negative thing to say about this solution, just so grateful it exists!

Link

https://greetabl.com/ <– Use promo code: GROWTH15 for 15% off. 🙂

4. SaasMQL

saasmql logo

Star Rating

4 out of 5

Services Offered

SaasMQL does more than just direct mail marketing. They are actually a full service agency specifically for SaaS companies, and one of their expertise happens to be direct mail. When you utilize SaasMQL’s direct mail services, you will gain access to their:

  • Targeted Direct Mail Campaigns
  • ABM Analytics
  • SaaS-focused Demand Generation
  • Campaign ROI in Salesforce

Pricing

You will need to schedule a consultation with the company for pricing.

saas mql direct mail

Pros

  • Seasoned expertise in SaaS-focused, targeted campaigns
  • Takes care of the entire campaign
  • Great support and customer service

Cons

  • Works primarily with venture-funded SaaS companies
  • Company is not an exclusively direct-mail company

Link

SaaSMQL – Get started today

5. Lob

lob direct mail logo

Star Rating

5 out of 5

Services Offered

Lob has created a direct mail system that works for the modern marketer. They let you program and control your direct mail campaigns the same way that you can control an email campaign or other digital marketing effort.

Lob’s direct mail features include things like:

  • Automatic triggers, which allow you to scale your campaigns to the next level.
  • A print delivery network that ensures your mail will travel the fastest route possible to its destination.
  • Control over every detail. No rigid templates, so that you can test your mail design the way you want to test it.
  • Dashboard and analytics that give you the granular insights you need to keep improving.
  • Easy API integration, to make tracking easier than ever before.

Pricing

Lob offers pricing plans based on the size of your business.

lob direct mail pricing
Lob’s annual pricing options

Pros

  • Address verification
  • Simple and easy to use API
  • Great developer documentation
  • Easy testing capabilities
  • Trigger based mail system for easy scale
  • Print delivery system that is optimized for the fasted delivery possible

Cons 

  • Set up and delivery times can sometimes be slower than other direct mail companies

Link

https://lob.com/

6. PrintingForLess

Star Rating

4 out of 5

Services Offered

PFL was the world’s first online print shop, founded in 1996. They’ve been doing the whole printing thing for a while, and their products reflect that. They are a one-stop shop, offering a whole host of different printed products, as well as direct mail services. Some of their services include:

  • Tactile Marketing Automation
  • Reseller Program
  • Web to Print Solutions
  • Mailing Services
  • Fulfillment
  • Custom Solutions

Pricing

You can contact the company for a price quote.

pay for less direct mail
Source: https://www.printingforless.com/

Pros

  • Provides services to design, print and mail numerous products 
  • Takes care of the entire process 
  • Provides mailing lists & will clean it up lists for you by removing duplicate or incorrect addresses 

Cons

  • Could give the sender a bit more control on stopping packages or changing send dates, as well as meeting deadlines
  • Access to analytics are limited, so you’ll have to make sure to implement in-house tracking.

Link

https://www.printingforless.com/

7. Data Axle USA

data-axle-usa-header-l

Star Rating

3 out of 5

Services Offered

Data Axle USA, previously known as InfoUSA, offers a number of different direct mail related services.

  • Mailing Lists
  • Direct Mail
  • Sales Leads
  • Data Enhancement
  • Customer Analysis Profiling
data axle USA

Pricing

You can speak with one of their marketing experts to get a price quote.

Pros

  • Offers a large number of products in both black and white and full color options. 
  • Can send your artwork to the company to be placed on the mailer 
  • Professionals can help you create a custom look for your mailer

Cons

  • No way to track regular mail

Link

https://www.dataaxleusa.com/marketing/direct-mail/

8. Postable

Star Rating

3 out of 5

Services Offered

Postable offers a slightly different kind of direct mail service. Not only do they allow you to mail regular mail, as well as fancier, custom-designed cards that can include “handwriting” font. You can choose from their hundreds of templates, or upload your own design.

Postable’s direct mail services offer all of the following:

  • Card Printing
  • Direct Mail
  • Custom Stationary
  • Automated Cards

Pricing

The company features a pricing calculator on their website. You can also contact the company for a price quote.

Pros

  • Easy-to-use website
  • Good for creating and mailing simple cards
  • Automated card mailing
  • 100% recycled cards

Cons 

  • Not very many paper options
  • On the pricier side, but they do have volume discounts

Link

https://www.postable.com/

9. Cactus Mailing

Star Rating

4 out of 5

Services Offered

Cactus Mailing offers something called “Smart Marketing,” which means they coordinate direct mail efforts with other forms of marketing–namely Google display and landing pages–to improve your campaign results. Their other marketing offerings include:

  • Direct Mail Postcards & Brochures
  • Mail Piece Design
  • Targeted Mailing Lists
  • Call Tracking

Pricing

You will need to contact the company for a price quote.

cactusmailing.com  homepage
Source: https://www.cactusmailing.com/

Pros

  • Offers many additional features, such as mailing lists and tracking options
  • Call-tracking feature. Cactus Mailing will put a tracking phone number on each mailer. When a customer calls that number, the calls are transferred to your business and you are able to track how many calls originated from your direct mail campaign
  • Smart marketing dual channel approach

Cons

  • Only specializes in postcards and brochures for direct mailing services

Link

https://www.cactusmailing.com/

10. Modern Postcard

Star Rating

4 out of 5

Services Offered

Modern Postcard has tons of different kinds of direct mail templates, allowing you to custom design your piece to make sure it stands out from the crowd. They also offer printing services, display advertising, sms marketing, email marketing, and other digital marketing options.

Some of their direct mail services include:

  • Data & Lists
  • Marketing & Design
  • Custom solutions like corporate marketing programs and web to print portals

Pricing

You can get a price estimate on the company’s website, with a free consultation and action plan.

modern postcards
Source: https://www.modernpostcard.com/direct-mail

Pros

  • Can use the service to design, print and mail a wide selection of mailer formats
  • Choose from several different lists, including consumer lists, business lists and occupant lists
  • Access to a collection of consumer data
  • Lots of additional marketing services

Cons

  • Process time is sometimes longer
  • Communication time could be improved

Link

https://www.modernpostcard.com/

11. Postalytics

Star Rating

4 out of 5

Services Offered

Postalytics is a direct mail automated service that delivers personalized messages through mailing campaigns. You’ll be informed on the delivery and response status of each piece you send, because it’s synced to your CRM or other marketing automations. Plus, they check all your addresses before sending to your list against USPS databases.

Services include:

  • Automated Direct Mail
  • Mailing Lists
  • Analytics
  • Response Tracking

Pricing

Postalytics offers different plans for automated direct mailing in addition to their per piece pricing, which can be found on their website.

postalytics pricing
Source: https://www.postalytics.com/direct-mail-pricing/

Pros

  • Tracks the performance of mailings
  • Automated direct mailing
  • Can be done all online with an easy to use, self-help format

Cons

  • Lack of customization and available types of mailing

Link

https://www.postalytics.com/

12. Print Label and Mail

Star Rating

3 out of 5

Services Offered

Print Label and Mail is a direct mail advertising company providing their services for over 30 years. They offer:

  • Full Service Direct Mail
  • Weekly Mailings (Drip Campaigns)
  • EDDM – Every Door Direct Mail
  • Do It Yourself Mailings
  • Label & Mail Service (if you already have postcards printed)
  • Mailing Lists
  • Guerilla Marketing

Pricing

You can contact the company for a quote and payment plans are offered as well for eligible customers.

Pros

  • Features design assistance, strong product quality, and printing and mailing options 
  • Provides product samples 
  • Extensive range of services and takes care of the entire process of sending out mailers 

Cons

  • No eco-friendly option available

Link

https://printlabelandmail.com/

13. PsPrint

PsPrint logo

Star Rating

3 out of 5

Services Offered

Ps Print is a design, printing, and mailing service. With printing options ranging from business cards to magnets, you have a lot of options to send using their direct mail campaigns!

  • Mailing Services
  • Custom Printing
  • Design Services
  • Die Cutting
  • Foil Stamping

Pricing

No pricing information is listed on the company’s website for Direct Mail services.

Pros

  • Offers a handful of products you can mail to current and potential customers. 
  • Features mailing list options, management of the assembly process and a fast turnaround time. 
  • Will review your designs to ensure the card meets the regulations set by the United States Postal Service. 

Cons

  • Lacks some features found with other similar companies

Link

https://www.psprint.com/

14. Next Day Flyers

Star Rating

3 out of 5

Services Offered

Next Day Flyers is primarily a printing company (with hundreds of different options) that also offers mailing services.

  • Custom Printing
  • Direct Mail
  • EDDM
  • Design Services
  • Rentable Mailing Lists

Pricing

A pricing table is provided on the company’s website for direct mailing services.

Pros

  • Helps you create custom mailers to send to potential and current customers in a designated area
  • Offers assistance through the design and mailing processes, and offers numerous support resources 
  • Each product is high quality and you can choose from a variety of paper options
  • Fast service

Cons

  • Does not offer tracking features

Link

https://www.nextdayflyers.com/

15. SmartPress

Star Rating

3 out of 5

Services Offered

SmartPress, previously PostcardBuilder, has combined printing and mailing services for various mailing needs, including:

  • Variable Data Printing
  • Online List Builder
  • Design Services
  • Corporate Branded Websites
  • Web to Print Storefronts
  • Layout Services
  • Digital Layer Cutting

Pricing

You will need to contact the company for a price quote.

Pros

  • Provides high-quality products, allows you to see a finished product before printing and offers design assistance. 
  • All postcards have a UV coating to help withstand fading during the mailing process. 
  • Ability to create a postcard and send it to yourself for no additional cost
  • Powered by Canva, their online design services makes you feel like a graphic designer!

Cons

  • Slower than some of the other services.

Link

https://smartpress.com/pages/postcardbuilder-is-now-smartpress

16. UpSwell

UpSwell-Hyper-local-marketing

Star Rating

3 out of 5

Services Offered

UpSwell, previously Mudlick Marketing, offers “hyper-local marketing” that serves single and multi-location independent and franchise businesses across all life stages of a business, from launch to rebirth. Offerings include:

  • Direct Mail (postcards, newsletters, envelopes, etc.)
  • Display Advertising
  • Reputation Management
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Mail2Mobile

Pricing

You can contact the company through their online form or by calling their support line.

upswell marketing
Source: https://upswellmarketing.com/capabilities

Pros

  • Call-tracking options 
  • Access to a detailed data report 
  • Includes many useful tools, such as reporting options and consulting services

Cons

  • Does not include as many product sizes as several other direct mail companies

Link

https://mudlickmail.com/

17. Postcard Mania

postcard mania logo

Star Rating

3 out of 5

Services Offered

Postcard Mania are “small business marketing experts” for postcard printing and direct mailing services that include:

  • Postcard & Brochure Design and Printing
  • Direct Mail API & Retargeting
  • EDDM
  • Graphic Design
  • Mailing Lists
  • Automated Email Follow Up
  • Website & Landing Page Design
  • PPC Management

Pricing

They have direct mail postcard pricing on their site, and you can get a quote for your exact project.

postcard mania
Source: https://www.postcardmania.com/direct-mail/

Pros

  • Prints a variety of marketing products
  • Gathers data and information for tracking campaign results
  • Custom design services

Cons

  • There can sometimes be a lot of back and forth with communication

Link

https://www.postcardmania.com/

Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)

Every door direct mail is another awesome option, particularly for small businesses. Pricing as good as it gets for mail (16 to 20 cents per piece) and minimums are very low. Many of the options on this list offer EDDM as well as direct mail services.

  • Great for small businesses, restaurants, realtors, and local political campaigns
  • Send at least 200 and up to 5,000 pieces per day per ZIP Code
  • Drop off your EDDM mailing at the Post Office
  • No special mailing permit needed
  • Pay online or at the Post Office

EDDM is a great way to dip your toe into direct mail at a pretty affordable price. Use USPS’s route tool to see targeting options.

Wrapping Up

Direct mail is an incredible way to reach audiences at massive scale. It can be a bit expensive, but once it gets going, the ROI can be huge.

Some agencies will try to tack on digital retargeting (Facebook Ads) along with your mail buy. This is a common upsell, but frankly, you can run these campaigns yourself for much cheaper.

Also, you can usually talk agencies down on price and minimum buy. Do your homework and put on your best negotiating hat with your direct mail campaigns!

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3 Comments

  • Hi Hailey,

    Great article! We at Postalytics are certainly seeing a spike in usage of automated direct mail. I’ll add to your Postalytics notes that we also offer both triggered and small batch mailing options, a robust developer API, and CRM/Marketing Automation integration with HubSpot, Salesforce and many others.

    Reply
  • Thanks for this great compilation of direct mail resources. Just to clarify the minimum for an Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) is the total for the route. i.e. Route “R1” has 150 stops you would only need 150 mailers. Also possible to send over 5,000 in a day if you take on the expense of acquiring a bulk mail permit OR work with a printer/ company that does. 🙂

    Reply
  • ClickFunnels has been made with the plan to make it simpler for you to sell items and services on the web. And the entirety of that while expanding conversion rates and expanding income and benefit. And all of that while maximizing conversion rates and increasing revenue and profit.

    Reply

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