Print-Ready Specs & Templates
Everything you need to design a 9x12 EDDM postcard that prints correctly the first time — the exact dimensions with bleed, the ad spot grid layouts real community card operators use, and the Canva setup you can build tonight.
A 9x12 mails landscape — 12 inches wide, 9 inches tall. The most common template mistake is building it portrait and finding out at the print check. The second most common is skipping the bleed.
12" wide × 9" tall — landscape
12.25" × 9.25" (0.125" bleed per side)
0.25" inside the trim line for all text and logos
14pt or 16pt, UV gloss front
Flat — qualifies for EDDM
300 DPI, CMYK color
Printing a 5,000-piece run of 9x12s costs about $1,200 from national EDDM printers, plus 26¢ per piece in postage. We keep a full line-item breakdown in what it actually costs to print and mail a 9x12.
A community card template isn't decoration — it's a revenue floor plan. The median operator card carries 14 ad spots at a median of $477 per spot, from our benchmark of 76 live operator sites. How you divide the card decides what you can charge for each piece of it.
Set the file to 12.25" × 9.25" — trim size plus bleed — before you place anything
Lay the ad spot grid first: 12, 14, 16, or 18 spots decides every other decision
Reserve premium placements: front banner, back center, coupon strips
Build it in Canva at 300 DPI so advertisers can be swapped without design skills
The same specs scale down to a 6x11 community card for smaller-format drops
Leave the indicia (postage box) clear in the top right of the address side
The workhorse layout. Enough spots that six sales cover your print-and-mail cost, with room for premium placements.
Front banner, back center, and coupon-strip spots price above the grid. See what operators actually charge per spot.
The smaller community card format costs ~40% less to print and suits smaller 2,500-piece drops. Templates come in both sizes.
Build it in Canva as a custom-size design at 12.25" × 9.25", lay out your spot grid from the specs above, and export a print-ready PDF. Then embed that same design on your 9x12tools campaign site as a live front-and-back preview, so advertisers can see exactly where their spot sits before they buy.
If you need the website that sells your card's ad spots — live postcard preview, pricing, lead capture — that's the 9x12 website templates built into 9x12tools.
A 9x12 postcard trims to 12 inches wide by 9 inches tall — it mails landscape. Build your design file at 12.25" × 9.25" so there's a 0.125" bleed on every side, and keep text at least 0.25" inside the trim line so nothing gets clipped.
Yes. Create a custom-size design at 12.25" × 9.25" (trim plus bleed) at 300 DPI, lay out your spot grid, and export a print-ready PDF. 9x12tools then embeds that same Canva design as a live front-and-back preview on your campaign website, so advertisers can see exactly where their spot sits.
The median community card carries 14 spots, from our benchmark of 76 live operator sites. Grids from 12 to 18 work — fewer, larger spots at higher prices, or more, smaller spots that are easier to sell.
Yes — a 9x12 is a USPS flat, which is what EDDM was built for. Postage is a flat rate per piece (currently 26¢ at EDDM Retail), identical for a 6x11 or a 9x12.
16pt costs a few cents more per piece and reads as premium — which matters when local businesses are judging whether your card is worth $477 a spot. Most established operators run 16pt with UV gloss.
Build the card in Canva with the specs above, then spin up the campaign website that sells the spots — live preview, pricing, and advertiser lead capture included.