How to Choose EDDM Carrier Routes for Your Business

Choose EDDM routes by starting with the area you actually serve, then using the free USPS EDDM mapping tool to select carrier routes inside it, filtering by residential households and demographics like age and income. Add up the household counts, and that total is how many pieces you need per mailing.

Step 1: Draw your real service area

Before opening a map, decide where a new customer is worth the drive. For a restaurant that may be your delivery radius. For a roofer it may be the neighborhoods with older homes. For a dentist it is usually a few miles around the office. Mailing outside that area wastes postage.

Step 2: Find the routes on the USPS EDDM map

The USPS EDDM tool lets you search by ZIP code or address and shows each carrier route as a shaded area. For every route you can see:

• The total number of addresses, split into residential and business
• Demographic filters such as age range, household income and household size
• The Post Office that serves the route, where you'll drop off the mailing

Routes vary a lot in size, from a couple of hundred addresses to well over a thousand, so always read the count rather than guessing.

Step 3: Filter for your customer

Use the filters to favor routes that match who buys from you. A kitchen remodeler might favor higher-income routes of homeowners. A family dentist might favor routes with larger households. Most businesses mail to residential addresses only; include businesses only if you sell to them.

Step 4: Start small and repeat

It is usually better to mail a few well-chosen routes several times than many routes once. Recognition builds with repetition. A practical start is two to four routes that you mail every few weeks for a season, then expand to the routes that produce calls.

Step 5: Match your count to a print tier

Add up the households on your chosen routes and multiply by the number of mailings. Then pick the print tier that covers it. With our buy-one-get-one pricing:

• Up to 2,500 pieces: pay for 1,000 (for example, 6″ × 11″ postcards for $399)
• Up to 5,000 pieces: pay for 2,500 ($639 for 6″ × 11″)
• Up to 10,000 pieces: pay for 5,000 ($799 for 6″ × 11″)

Printing the whole season at once and mailing it in waves is usually much cheaper per piece. See all sizes on our EDDM printing page and full price list.

Step 6: Remember the drop-off rules

With EDDM Retail you take the bundles to the Post Office that serves those routes. Pieces are bundled in stacks of 50 to 100 with a facing slip, and one mailer can drop up to 5,000 pieces per ZIP code per day. Our EDDM packages can be shrink-wrapped in bundles of 100 to make that easier.

Prefer to have us look at the map with you? Call 512-573-1977 with your ZIP codes and the kind of customer you want, and we'll suggest routes and a piece count.