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Every Door Direct Mail

What is Every Door Direct Mail?

EDDM is a USPS program that puts your mailer in every mailbox on the postal routes you pick, with no mailing list and no names. Here is how it works, the sizes that qualify and what it costs.

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Every Door Direct Mail, or EDDM, is the Postal Service's way of letting anyone mail a whole neighborhood without a mailing list. You choose postal carrier routes on a map, and the carrier leaves one piece at every address on each route. This guide is part of our Direct Mail 101 series, which compares EDDM with list mail and handouts.

Mail with no names

An EDDM piece carries no name and no street address. It uses what USPS calls a simplified address. The basic form is "Postal Customer", and a mailing to homes only can say "Residential Customer" (DMM 602.3.2). You may also see "Local Postal Customer": the word "Local" is an optional stand-in for the town and state.

The same rule lists words you may not use. "Other designations (e.g., 'Food Buyer,' 'Voter') are not permitted," so a campaign cannot address its EDDM piece to "Voter".

Because nobody's name is on it, the carrier delivers to every active address on the route. If a piece can't be delivered, USPS throws it away; this class of mail is not sent back (DMM 602.3.1.3).

What a carrier route is

A carrier route is the set of addresses one letter carrier delivers to. Each ZIP Code holds several. The USPS EDDM online tool names them by ZIP and route number, such as 33301-C001.

For each route the tool shows the number of residential and business addresses, the total, and the postage. One route we looked up in ZIP 33301 on October 7, 2026 held 964 homes and 273 businesses, 1,237 addresses in all.

You buy whole routes. The tool only offers whole-route checkboxes, and USPS's EDDM user guide says Retail users "cannot add part of a route to an order" (EDDM user guide). You can choose residential addresses only, which the tool offers as a filter.

The sizes that qualify

EDDM Retail only accepts flats, which are larger than a letter. For EDDM, a piece counts as a flat if it is longer than 10.5 inches, or taller than 6.125 inches, or thicker than a quarter inch (DMM 143.2.5). That lower threshold applies only to EDDM, which is why a 6.25" × 9" postcard qualifies here even though it would not count as a flat anywhere else.

The upper limits are 15 inches long, 12 inches high and three quarters of an inch thick (DMM 101.2.1), and the piece may weigh no more than 3.3 ounces.

USPS's own EDDM fact sheet names the most popular sizes as 6.5" × 9" postcards, 8.5" × 11" oversized postcards and 4.25" × 14" tri-fold menus (EDDM Retail fact sheet). We print four EDDM sizes:

Bigger pieces give you more room for a photo and a headline. They cost more to print and pay the same postage.

The indicia: why you never buy a stamp

The block in the top right corner of an EDDM piece is the indicia. It replaces the stamp and tells the carrier postage is paid. USPS requires it on every piece, printed above and to the right of the address, and it reads on five lines (DMM 144.1.3):

PRSRT STD
ECRWSS
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
EDDM-Retail

You pay the postage for the whole mailing at the post office counter when you drop it off, by card, check or cash. No mailing permit is needed (DMM 144.1.1).

The two limits: 200 and 5,000

An EDDM Retail mailing must be at least 200 pieces, and no more than 5,000 pieces per day per 5-digit ZIP Code (DMM 143.2.5). The one exception to the minimum is a ZIP with fewer than 200 addresses in total, which you can mail in full.

The cap is per ZIP per day, so a larger mailing is split across days or across ZIP Codes. Above that, USPS has a bulk version, EDDM BMEU, which needs a mailing permit and has no volume limit.

Why campaigns use it

USPS's own page lists "local political campaigns" among the senders EDDM Retail is built for (USPS EDDM). It fits any race where a neighborhood is the audience: a city council district, a school board seat, a local ballot question. Our guide to EDDM for campaigns covers the political version.

What it costs today

Two lines make up the price.

A worked example: 1,000 of our 6.5" × 9" postcards cost $425 to print and prepare. Mailed to routes with 1,000 addresses, postage is $260, so the whole mailing is $685, or 69¢ a home. The EDDM cost guide breaks down every line at larger quantities.

Doing it yourself

You can run an EDDM mailing on your own. The steps, all from USPS's rules:

  1. Pick your routes in the EDDM online tool and save the order (that needs a USPS.com account).
  2. Print pieces that meet the size rules, with the indicia.
  3. Bundle them by route in stacks of 50 to 100, with a facing slip on top of each bundle (DMM 145.1.3).
  4. Take them, with the postage statement (PS Form 3587), to the post office that serves those routes, and pay the postage there.

The route-picking guide covers step one, and the EDDM timeline covers when to start.

Or let us do it

We print to USPS spec with the indicia already on, bundle by route, prepare the facing slips and paperwork, and drop the mailing at the right post office. Send us the ZIP Codes and we'll map the routes with you. See EDDM pricing.

Ready to mail? We print EDDM mailers to USPS spec with the indicia, bundle them by route, fill in the paperwork and take them to the post office. See EDDM pricing →

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