6 Best Direct Mail Services for Small Businesses in 2022

The best direct mail services offer everything needed for direct mailer marketing campaigns, from design and printing services to mailing lists and delivery. Comparing providers isn’t apples-to-apples, however, as some offer cheap printing or fast delivery while others specialize in standout finishes and options. To make your choice easier, we evaluated dozens of providers to arrive at the six best direct mailing services based on overall value, editing tools, niche features, quality, and cost.

• VistaPrint: Overall best direct mail services for businesses of any size
• PsPrint: Best direct mailing service for cheap Every Day Direct Mail (EDDM) services
• PostcardMania: Ideal for businesses wanting multichannel marketing with mailers and targeted online ads
• Overnight Prints: Super-fast turnaround times for small businesses wanting direct mailing services in a pinch
• MOO: Luxe finishes for brands that want high-end marketing mailers
• 48HourPrint: Best for those wanting the widest range of direct mailer sizes

Best Direct Mail Services at a Glance

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*We compared 4”x6”, full color, two-sided postcard pricing for printing and mailing
**Subject to cutoff time
***Cost of printing is effectively bundled into mailing services

Let’s take a look at the pros, cons, and unique features of each of the best direct mail marketing services for small businesses:

VistaPrint: Best Overall Direct Mailing Service

VistaPrint is one of the best-known online printing services and the go-to for business card printing for many companies. Because it offers an affordable, all-in-one direct mailing service for business postcards that’s easy to use from start to finish, it’s our top pick for the best direct mail services.

VistaPrint is essentially a one-stop marketing collateral shop. With more than two dozen products (and countless variations) to choose from, you can purchase nearly any type of printed marketing or branded collateral on their website. This includes marketing mailers and non-mailer pieces, as well as branded clothing, bags, pens, and thousands of other items.

There are in-house design services should you need help, including access to design contests on 99designs, which VistaPrint purchased in 2020. This means you can source designs from freelance professionals worldwide via VistaPrint’s design services. As if that weren’t enough, this year, they launched VistaCreate, an online graphic design and editing platform you can use to create all sorts of digital and print marketing materials for free.

Unfortunately, postcards are the only products mailable directly from VistaPrint, and while you can upload or purchase a targeted mailing list, they don’t offer Every Day Direct Mail services. For an alternative that mails seven different types of marketing mailers and offers EDDM services as well as targeted mailing lists, choose PsPrint.

Choose from thousands of premade business postcard examples and templates and use VistaPrint’s intuitive editing tools to customize them or upload your own design. For help, access VistaPrint’s in-house design services, or find a graphic designer to work with through 99designs. Next, upload your mailing list or buy a targeted mailing list from VistaPrint, which then prints, addresses, stamps, and mails your postcard campaign.

Here are some examples of VistaPrint’s direct mail designs:

VistaPrint Pricing for Postcards, Brochures & Booklets (Catalogs)

VistaPrint Design Editor

Using VistaPrint’s design editor to customize your project is easy. You can customize items via list or by clicking on them to edit. In addition, you can add a URL, and the editor will generate a QR code (quick response code) and add it to your item, creating a seamless way to drive traffic to your website, landing page, or special offers.

Our Expert Opinion

No matter the size of your business, VistaPrint is the best direct mailing service for your postcard marketing campaigns. It provides everything you need in one place, including mailing lists and design services, at an affordable price and with postage discounts. It’s also ideal for designing and printing other materials, brochures, catalogs, business cards, flyers, and branded promotional wares.

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PsPrint: Cheapest Direct Mail Printing & EDDM Mailing

PsPrint offers EDDM direct mail services for seven different types of products, making it a good choice for a small business that wants to send marketing materials other than postcards. Like VistaPrint, if you don’t have a mailing list, you can purchase a targeted list from PsPrint. However, you can also use Every Day Direct Mailing services to target mailers within your city, county, or by ZIP code.

With any PsPrint product, you choose the production time (typically one to five days), but the cost increases as you shorten the production time. And PsPrint will send you any extra prints leftover at no charge, as long as they all fit in one box. Mail services include printing and mailing via your mailing list, a targeted mailing list you purchase from PsPrint, or EDDM mailing services for:

• Postcards
• Brochures
• Greeting cards, such as corporate holiday cards
• Invitations
• Booklets
• Catalogs
• Newsletters

You can upload your own design for your direct mail materials or choose a template and use PsPrint’s design tools to customize the design for your project. You can filter templates by size, industry, main colors, occasion, and even design style to narrow in on the best one to customize.

Check out these examples of PsPrint’s direct mailers:

PsPrint Print Pricing for Postcards, Brochures & Catalogs (Booklets)

PsPrint Design Editor

PsPrint’s design editor is intuitive and offers quite a bit of customization options. One thing missing that you get with VistaPrint and MOO is the ability to add a QR code, which is more than just a nice-to-have in terms of marketing value. Change fonts, colors, and images, and add objects, then easily share your design for editing or approval.

Our Expert Opinion

Like many of its competitors, PsPrint promises high-quality products with a quick turnaround time. However, there are two ways in which it differs from the other business printers, including our top pick, VistaPrint.

PsPrint lets you choose the production speed and will mail more than just postcards to your mailing list. Costs increase based on speed, so (like Overnight Prints) expect to pay a premium if you need a rush order. Also, you’ll have to purchase at least 500 postcards to get direct mail service, so it’s not the best fit for smaller projects.

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PostcardMania: Best for Cross-channel Marketing

PostcardMania markets themselves as “small business marketing experts” because of their affordable bulk pricing, Everywhere Small Business option, thousands of predesigned postcards arranged per industry, and stellar customer service. They provide a decent number of mailer types, so PostcardMania is a solid choice for businesses needing multiple marketing products, unlike MOO and Overnight Prints.

What sets PostcardMania apart from other direct mailing companies on this list is their intensive campaign tracking system. They use a cutting-edge barcode technology system that triggers automated follow-ups. Similar to remarketing ads, as soon as someone visits your direct mail campaign’s link to your website or landing page, they start to see text and visual ads matching your postcards as they surf the internet.

Additionally, the Everywhere Small Business feature displays targeted ads to these same users on social media platforms. It also has a more robust phone call tracking system, making it a powerful platform for omnichannel marketing.

Examples of PostcardMania’s direct mailers:

PostcardMania Pricing for Postcard & Other Mailers

Our Expert Opinion

PostcardMania is a solid choice for businesses that want to integrate direct mail alongside digital marketing channels or simply those that want to order in bulk. They offer some of the lowest prices per piece in the industry. However, if you’re in a rush, Overnight Prints will be a better option. At the same time, the lack of in-house design software is a deal breaker for small businesses—something that VistaPrint can easily resolve.

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Overnight Prints: Fastest Turnaround for Direct Mail Materials

If you need high-quality direct mail marketing materials ASAP, Overnight Prints can have them printed and to your door the next day. It also offers more than two dozen types of printed marketing materials, including sugar cookies and macarons, for a truly unique marketing campaign.

Overnight Prints’ direct mail marketing services are limited to postcards and oversized mailers. Plus, if you choose Overnight Prints for mailing, you will need to provide your own mailing list as it doesn’t rent or sell mailing lists. There are templates to get your project going, but most aren’t geared toward businesses.

Overnight Prints has industry-specific landing pages that lead to collateral sets. This makes it easy for a small business to grab multiple types of marketing materials and update them to create a cohesive look across all collateral.

Examples of Overnight Print’s direct mailers:

Overnight Prints Pricing for Postcards, Brochures & Catalogs (Booklets)

Overnight Prints Design Editor

Overnight Prints’ design editor is easy to use but not nearly as sophisticated as that of VistaPrint or MOO. Like VistaPrint, you can automatically generate and add a QR code to your direct mailer service to drive traffic to your website or a landing page, such as a salon’s appointment booking page.

Our Expert Opinion

Overnight Prints works with you to ensure you get your order when needed—even if that’s tomorrow. It offers direct mailing services only for postcards and oversized mailers, so if you need to send out something other than postcards, consider PsPrint. Likewise, you can’t buy a targeted mailing list as you can with PsPrint or VistaPrint, or generate one automatically with 48HourPrint.com’s EDDM service.

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MOO: Best for Luxe Direct Mail Marketing Materials

MOO may be best known for its unusual printed card sizes and luxe finishes. You can get mini or square business cards, square postcards, half-sheet postcards, and oversize postcards up to 6”x9”.

MOO also offers modern, visually impactful templates to give you a jump-start on your direct mail marketing campaign designs. Other direct mail services and printers give you options for paper stock thickness or weight, but MOO also offers luxurious materials meant to make people notice the feel and look, such as layered stock with a bright color in the center.

Need inspiration? The MOO blog is filled with design examples and suggestions for making your marketing materials stand out from the crowd. Get tips to make your designs pop, whether you design them on MOO or elsewhere.

Another unique feature of MOO is the option to print up to 25 different designs in each order (e.g., 25 different designs for 100 postcards would be four postcards of each design). Unfortunately, you’ll have to take care of your direct mailer’s addressing, postage, and mailing, since MOO only provides printing services.

Examples of MOO Postcard designs and finishes for direct mail collateral:

MOO Pricing for Postcards

MOO Design Editor

The MOO design editor is just as sleek as its designs. It may take you a few minutes to navigate your options, but if you start with one of their templates, you’ll find it easy to customize without losing sophistication. Change fonts and color combinations, and get templates with multiple designs that can be printed in the same run.

Our Expert Opinion

Although MOO isn’t an all-in-one direct mailing service like VistaPrint or PsPrint, it’s the best direct mailer printer when you want high-end designs, unique sizing, or a luxury finish. Even with a promo code, it’s still more expensive than budget-friendly competitors VistaPrint, PostcardMania, and 48HourPrint. But if your top concern is sleek design and high-quality finishes, MOO is the go-to for direct mail postcards.

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48HourPrint: Widest Range of Postcard & Brochure Sizes

At 48HourPrint.com, you can get a myriad of printed marketing materials including postcards, catalogs, trade show displays, and business cards, just to name a few. Like VistaPrint, you can also purchase branded promotional products. However, they don’t offer nearly as wide a range of product types, nor do they have the template selection offered by most competitors that makes designing your marketing materials easy.

There’s a “Discounts & Deals” tab on the home page, which makes it easy to see whether there is a special offer your business might want to take advantage of. At the time of this writing, postcards were listed as 65% off, with a discount set not to expire until December 31, 2024 (when viewed at checkout), effectively rendering it the regular price.

48HourPrint.com is one of the most affordable small business printing services for EDDM, although not as cheap as PsPrint. Like PsPrint, 48HourPrint provides direct mail services for materials other than business postcards, including business brochures and folded cards.

To get started, you’ll either need to gather images or premade artwork in order to customize one of the templates available via 48HourPrint.com, as they are very basic. However, this is a step forward from previous reviews when no templates were provided.

Examples of 48HourPrint.com direct mailers:

48HourPrint.com Pricing for Postcards, Brochures & Catalogs

48HourPrint.com Design Editor

48HourPrint has a design tool, but it’s outdated compared to other business printing services like MOO. Likewise, there are premade templates, but they are super-basic and generic, lacking the industry-specific templates available in VistaPrint as well as the sophistication of VistaPrint and MOO templates.

You can search stock images from the 48HourPrint.com design editor, but to use one, you’ll have to pay a licensing fee. Realistically, businesses wanting to use 48HourPrint.com for low pricing will want to source postcard, catalog, and brochure design ideas and then create and upload their own artwork.

Alternatively, you could hire a freelance graphic designer via Fiverr to design your marketing mailers. If you want a do-it-yourself mailer design option, head over to Envato Market. You can purchase a single design template or subscribe to Envato Elements for unlimited access to postcard, brochure, and business card templates, as well as design elements like logos, icons, and stock imagery.

Our Expert Opinion

48HourPrint’s pricing is comparable to VistaPrint, and also offers Every Door Direct Mail, which is an affordable way for a small business with no mailing list to target every address in a city or ZIP code. You won’t find sophisticated templates or an intuitive design editor here, but as long as you are able to provide your own designs, it’s affordable and offers the widest range of sizes for many different types of marketing collateral, including postcard mailers.

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How We Evaluated the Best Direct Mail Services for Small Businesses

At the basic level, direct mail providers will print (and usually mail) your business’ marketing materials in a timely manner. To be considered the best, direct mailing companies should stand out for affordability, design options, variety of products, in-house mailing services, or niche specialties and features. A low minimum quantity order of 500 or less is also important to keep the service affordable.

In addition to meeting our criteria, the providers here also give you control over design customization, and most offer templates to help you get started. Here are the criteria we used to determine the best direct mail service:

• Affordability
• Minimum order quantity
• Product offering
• Product quality
• Customization capabilities
• Printing and mailing services
• Ease of use
• Turnaround time

All of the direct mail companies we recommend here are excellent options depending on your business needs. For example, if the costs to design, print, and mail your marketing materials aren’t your top concern, turnaround time may be, and one service offers next-day delivery. Or you might want an especially high-end design for your direct mail marketing campaign, but don’t mind doing the mailing yourself.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are examples of direct mail?

Direct mail refers to a physical piece of mail with an advertising or marketing message that’s delivered to your mailing address, usually by the U.S. Post Office (USPS). Booklets with coupons, postcards announcing a grand opening, product catalogs, and credit card offers are all common examples of direct mail. Find more inspiration with 25 direct mail marketing ideas for promoting your business.

Does direct mailing still work?

The short answer is yes, direct mailers are still very effective. In a recent study, those surveyed said direct mail influences how quickly they make buying decisions. Direct mail influences 83% of shoppers regarding what they buy. Also, shoppers tend to spend more when they receive direct mail—about twice as much as those who don’t get mail. Learn more about marketing materials in this guide.

How much does direct mail cost?

When you break down the cost of direct mail, pay attention to costs for ad copywriting and design, mailing lists, postage, and printing. If you have your own mailing list and can do the design yourself, the costs for printing and mailing could be less than $1 per piece mailed. With professional design services and high-quality finishes, costs could be as much as $10 per piece.

What is Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)?

An affordable alternative to using a targeted mailing list for a direct mail marketing campaign is to use an EDDM service. While you won’t be able to target specific demographics like age range or salary, you can target cities and ZIP codes. Read about more local advertising ideas here.

Bottom Line

Direct mail is an easy, affordable way to advertise your business. The best direct mail companies offer both printing and mailing, as well as templates and design tools. Many also give you the option to buy targeted mailing lists so you can reach your ideal customer. We recommend VistaPrint as the best overall choice for small businesses. It’s affordable and has an intuitive design platform with thousands of business mailer templates to get you started.

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