Direct Mail Printing & Mailing
United GMG prints and mails direct mail campaigns from one plant in Mount Prospect, near Chicago: postcards, letters, and self-mailers printed in-house, personalized, inserted, sorted for USPS postage discounts, and delivered into USPS possession — one vendor, one schedule, one shop accountable for the whole run.
We print and mail for Chicago marketers, nonprofits, banks, property managers, and the agencies that produce for them — one-time campaigns and standing monthly programs alike. Per-piece postage is on this page, at USPS rates effective July 12, 2026.
Comparing vendors? Start with the checklist below — it works on any shop, including us. For a number, bring three things: your piece, your list, and the drop date.
Postcard campaigns, appeal letters, and standing statement programs — under one Chicago roof, for marketers, nonprofits, and the agencies that produce for them.
Postcards and statements, printed and mailed
Request a quote
Direct mail postcards: sizes, formats, and postage
Postcards are the most-mailed campaign piece we print — and the one where size quietly changes the postage. Two rules do most of the work: cards up to 4¼ × 6 inches earn card postage; anything bigger mails at letter prices.
What a postcard costs to mail · rates effective July 12, 2026
First-Class single-piece card, $0.65; presorted on a clean list, $0.495. Full per-piece math is in the estimate below; stocks, coatings, and run options live on our custom postcard printing page.
Choosing between 4×6, 6×9, letter, and self-mailer
A 4×6 card is the lowest-cost door-opener: one message, one image, fastest to produce, and the cheapest to mail at card rates. It is the workhorse of high-frequency programs where the goal is a single clear call to action repeated across a season.
The 6×9 buys roughly double the canvas and tends to carry offers, maps, and response codes without crowding. Because it exceeds the 4¼ × 6 card limit, First-Class prices it as a letter — and in Marketing Mail, the class most campaigns use, cards and letters price the same anyway, so the extra selling space costs nothing extra in postage. That makes the 6×9 the quiet value pick for a campaign already mailing at Marketing Mail rates.
A letter in a #10 envelope reads as correspondence — it fits appeals, statements, and anything personal or private, and it can carry several pieces collated into one envelope: a letter, a reply card, and a return envelope arriving as one package. A folded self-mailer skips the envelope but keeps interior space: USPS treats a properly sealed self-mailer as a letter, so it prices from the letter tables while giving you a fold-out canvas. The honest tiebreaker is the job the piece has to do — the offer, the audience, and whether it needs to feel like mail or like a letter — not the postage table.
Statement & Invoice Printing and Mailing
The quietest proof of a schedule is a mailing that repeats. Our statement printing and mailing services run as standing programs — same format, same drop window, month after month — exactly what checklist line 5 (below) asks.
Working programs, not showpieces — and if a date is ever at risk, you hear it from us before you ask.
How a standing statement program runs, month to month
Each cycle, files arrive on schedule, get cleaned and personalized, printed, tri-folded, inserted, and delivered to USPS, with the postage paperwork filed on every drop. The first month sets the template: we take one live file, agree the layout and the insert set, proof it before anything runs, and lock the drop window. From the second month on, the program runs on the file handoff alone — you send data, we send mail, and the estimate reads the same every cycle with postage as its own line. Changes ride the next cycle rather than resetting the program, which is why banks and property managers run statements this way for years at a stretch. Because the same shop prints and mails, there is one schedule to protect and one place to call when a month runs tight — the point checklist line 5 is really testing.
The vendor checklist
What should you look for in a print-and-mail vendor?
Buyers reach us saying "we're looking for a new print production partner." Here's the sheet we'd hand them — seven checks. Take it to every vendor on your shortlist; it works on us too, and each line links to where this page answers it.
- They print AND mail in the same building. ASK ANY VENDOR: Who prints, and who mails? Same company, same address? Exhibit 3 · one roof
- The list work happens in-house. ASK ANY VENDOR: Who runs the move updates, de-duping, and USPS presort on my list? Exhibit 3 · the data room
- Postage appears at the actual USPS rate, as its own line. ASK ANY VENDOR: Show me postage on the estimate. Is it USPS's price, passed through? Exhibit 5 · the one estimate
- They've run your format before, at your quantity. ASK ANY VENDOR: What did your last run of my format look like? Exhibit 1 · formats
- One schedule, one contact who owns the drop date. ASK ANY VENDOR: Who do I call, and who owns my mail date? Exhibit 2 · standing programs
- You can see the plant. ASK ANY VENDOR: Can I visit and watch my job run? Exhibit 6 · the plant
- Straight answers about what they don't do. ASK ANY VENDOR: What don't you offer? Exhibit 4 · our own boundary
What does printing and mailing under one roof include?
Everything a campaign needs happens in one building: pieces come off our own offset and digital presses, then are collated, tri-folded, stuffed, addressed and mailed — without leaving the floor. No truck between companies; no second vendor re-quoting your schedule.
Five rooms · one continuous roof · no gap for your job to fall into
What "the list work" actually covers
Before anything prints, the mailing list gets processed the way USPS expects. Addresses are standardized against the USPS database so every line matches the format the Postal Service reads. Movers are updated through the national change-of-address system, so a piece follows someone who has relocated instead of landing at an old address. Duplicates are collapsed — the same household on two source lists becomes one record — so nobody gets two of the same mailing, and you do not pay postage twice to reach one person.
Then several lists are merged and purged into one clean file, and that file is presorted: grouped and sequenced the way USPS wants to receive it. Presorting is the step that earns commercial postage rates instead of retail stamps, because you have done the sorting work the Postal Service would otherwise do. The same clean file drives personalization — each piece gets its name and address printed during the run, and the message can change by segment, so different neighborhoods, giving levels, or account types can carry different offers from a single production pass.
When the mailing drops, a postage statement is filed with USPS and the job is delivered into USPS possession at the dock, trays tagged and prepared to spec. You get documentation of the drop, and the mail is in the Postal Service's hands from that point forward.
The two-vendor version of the same campaign, counted
Plenty of good campaigns run with a separate print shop and mail house — pieces are printed, stamped and mailed by two different companies. Here is what that adds to your desk, counted in paperwork rather than opinions: two estimates instead of one, two schedules with a dependency between them, one freight leg as cartons ride from the printer to the mail house, files sent twice, and two invoices at the end. Every one of those items is manageable, and agencies manage them every week. The checklist question is narrower: when the print schedule and the mail schedule disagree, who owns the day it lands in mailboxes? Under one roof, that question has exactly one answer — the same company that gave you the estimate, the schedule, and the dock receipt.
Do you need a mailing list, or can you mail every door?
Customers ask us directly: "Does GMG offer EDDM postcard mail printing?" Fair question — USPS's Every Door Direct Mail reaches every address on a carrier route, no list needed. Here's the honest comparison, and our own boundary.
| Targeted list | EDDM | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it reaches | People and roles you choose | Every address on a route, mostly homes |
| List | Required — yours or acquired | None — USPS route maps |
| Personalization | Names, addresses, versions | "Local Postal Customer" only |
| Postage | Commercial presort rates — see below | $0.260 per piece, EDDM retail |
| Fits best | B2B, donors, statements | Neighborhood saturation |
Our boundary, stated plainly: We print EDDM formats, but we do not offer EDDM mailing. If every door on a route genuinely is your buyer, that's the right tool — we print the pieces to spec, and you take them to USPS. Checklist line 7, answered on ourselves.
For most B2B campaigns the list wins — your buyers are specific roles at specific addresses, and only a list lets the piece carry a name.
What does direct mail printing and mailing cost per piece?
Postage is set by USPS and printing is set by the job — this table shows how the per-piece cost of a mailing comes together at each quantity. One estimate, because it's one vendor: print, list work, and postage on the same sheet, postage passed through at USPS's price.
| Quantity | Printingquoted per job | Data + mail prepquoted per job | PostageUSPS rate, per piece | All-in per pieceon your estimate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 × 6 postcard | ||||
| 1,000 | — | — | $0.467 | — |
| 5,000 | — | — | $0.467 | — |
| 10,000 | — | — | $0.467 | — |
| 25,000 | — | — | $0.467 | — |
| Letter in a #10 envelope | ||||
| 1,000 | — | — | $0.467 | — |
| 5,000 | — | — | $0.467 | — |
| 10,000 | — | — | $0.467 | — |
| 25,000 | — | — | $0.467 | — |
| Folded self-mailer | ||||
| 1,000 | — | — | $0.467 | — |
| 5,000 | — | — | $0.467 | — |
| 10,000 | — | — | $0.467 | — |
| 25,000 | — | — | $0.467 | — |
Printing and data + mail prep are quoted per job — stock, coverage, and inserts move the number — so they belong on your estimate, itemized, with postage as its own line at the USPS rate. Mailing First-Class? Presorted letters run $0.707 at the same tier.
Budgeting a whole campaign rather than a piece? Our direct mail pricing guide walks the full spend, and its cost calculator gives you a working number in about a minute.
Who we print and mail for
Direct mail marketing in Chicago, IL runs through our one Mount Prospect plant: postcards for marketers, appeal letters for nonprofits, statement programs for banks and property managers, and runs for the agencies buying on a client's behalf. Checklist line 6 is the easiest to test on us — you're welcome to visit and watch your job run.
Chicago plant, nationwide delivery
Mail we enter at Mount Prospect is delivered by USPS anywhere in the country — the plant's location sets where the work happens, not where the campaign can go. A Chicago-area organization mailing to customers in twelve states runs one job here, and USPS carries each piece the last mile. For agencies, that means a single production partner can serve a client's national footprint without you assembling a patchwork of regional mail houses; for local businesses, it means the same plant that handles a neighborhood postcard drop can scale to a multi-state program without changing vendors.
Guides
Reading for the shortlist
Operational guides from our own floor — useful whichever vendor you choose.
The fine print, in plain words
Common questions about direct mail printing
How many pieces do I need for commercial postage rates?
USPS Marketing Mail requires 200 or more pieces, or 50 or more pounds, per mailing. Most direct mail printing jobs we run start around 1,000 pieces, where the presort discount comfortably outweighs the list work. Under 200 pieces, mail goes at single-piece rates — still often worth doing for a small, high-value audience, just priced differently. Above the minimum, the per-piece postage stays the same whether you mail 1,000 or 25,000, so the economics improve mainly through print and prep, not postage, as the quantity climbs.
First-Class or Marketing Mail — which should my campaign use?
Both are options on the same estimate; the choice is about speed and content, not vendor. First-Class moves faster and forwards or returns undeliverable pieces, which matters for statements, invoices, and anything time-sensitive or address-sensitive — it is why the statement programs above run First-Class. Marketing Mail costs less per piece and is the standard for promotional campaigns where a few days of transit time and a small percentage of undeliverable pieces are acceptable trade-offs for lower postage. A clean, presorted list earns the commercial rate in either class; we quote both when it is a close call so you can see the difference in dollars rather than guess.
Can you print each person's name and address on the piece?
Yes — that's standard, not special. We print names and mailing addresses directly on each piece during the run, and the message can change by segment: different offers by neighborhood, different signatures by branch, different asks by giving history. The mailing list drives it, which is one more reason clean list work matters.
What do you need from me to start?
Three things: the piece (or the print-ready file for it), the mailing list as a spreadsheet, and the day the mailing needs to drop. We take the list from there — standardizing addresses, updating movers, removing duplicates — and the estimate comes back itemized, with print, data and mail prep, and postage as separate lines.
Who handles the USPS paperwork?
We do. Every commercial mailing files a postage statement with USPS, and the job is delivered into USPS possession at the dock with the trays and tags prepared the way USPS requires. Postage itself is paid at the USPS rate and appears on your estimate as its own line — we don't mark it up.
Can you collate several pieces into one envelope?
Yes. A letter package often carries more than the letter: a reply card, a return envelope, a brochure. We collate the set, insert it in order, seal, address, and mail — one job, one schedule. Customers describe the whole motion in one breath: print the cards and envelopes, collate, insert, print the names and addresses, mail. That's the job.
Do you work with agencies and design firms?
Constantly — a meaningful share of our direct mail work arrives through agencies and design firms producing for their clients. The arrangement is ordinary: your design, our production, the client relationship stays yours. Agencies tend to use the vendor checklist above hardest, and we hold up to it.
Seven checks. The last line is a price.
- Prints and mails in one building
- List work in-house
- Postage at the USPS rate, its own line
- Your format, run at your quantity
- One schedule, one contact
- A plant you can visit
- Straight answers — boundary included
You've seen all seven.
United GMG1864 S Elmhurst Rd
Mount Prospect, IL 60056
847.588.7600
Section 8 — request a quote
Tell us the piece, the quantity, and the day it needs to drop. The estimate comes back itemized — print, data and mail prep, and postage as separate lines.
