Flat Mailer vs. Letter Mailer
In general, letter mailers are preferable to flat mailers, because the printing and postage is less. A letter mailer is any mailer that is at least 3.5” x 5” and no larger than 6” x 11.5.” Folded brochures have a maximum size of 6” x 10.5.”

Flat mailers can go up in size to 12” x 15.” You generally see these larger sizes with Every Door Direct Mail, which is a saturated mailin that goes to everyone on a carrier route. It has to be a flat size and an 8.5” x 11” card is a very popular size for this.

What if you have a multi-page, stapled booklet, catalog or newsletter that is 8.5” x 11?” What’s the best way to mail these?

There are two choices. You can leave it 8.5” x 11” and mail it as a flat and pay a higher postage cost. Or you can fold it to 8.5” x 5.5” and mail it as a letter. However, any folded, stapled booklet has to have three tabs placed on it to hold it closed as it goes through the high speed USPS processing equipment. Two tabs on the leading edge and one tab on the trailing edge. This generally requires 3 passes through the mailing equipment – two passes for the tabs and one pass for addressing.

The postage will be lower, but the mail processing costs will be higher. Also, your customer now has to break three tabs to open your mail piece in order to read it. While the tabs are designed to open easily, they can sometimes tear a bit of the page that they are stuck to and not everyone wants to tear open something they may perceive as “junk mail.”

Sometimes the better alternative is to leave the piece flat. Flat mailers do not need to be tabbed. They get addressed and then bundled according to carrier route, by using banding material or rubber bands. They arrive in your customer’s mailbox ready to open and read.

Before you design your piece, check with your mail house on what the cost and postage estimate will be mailing as a flat versus a letter. It may be that a flat is a better option, as the postage savings of a letter may not equal the extra costs of tabbing.

Your mail house professional can help you get work through these situations so you get the most out of your printing and mailing dollars.

Call us at 818 386-8667 for more detailes.
Good mailing to you!