What Is EDDM? The Postal Program Behind Every 9x12 Community Card

What is EDDM?

EDDM stands for Every Door Direct Mail. It's a USPS program that lets you mail a piece to every address on a postal carrier route without buying a mailing list, renting addresses, or knowing a single name.

You pick the routes. The carrier delivers to every door on them. You pay a reduced per-piece rate because you've done the sorting work the Postal Service would otherwise do.

That's the whole idea. No list, no addresses, no targeting individuals — you're buying a neighborhood.

Why community cards use it

A community card is a shared postcard: one operator sells ad spots on a single large card, then mails it to a route. Ten or fifteen local businesses split the cost of a drop none of them would run alone.

That model only works because of EDDM. Three reasons:

No list means no list cost. Renting a targeted mailing list adds cost and complexity per drop. EDDM skips it entirely, which is what makes the per-advertiser price low enough that a local dentist says yes.

Saturation is the product. A community card isn't trying to reach the right 400 people. It's trying to be on every kitchen counter in a defined area, repeatedly. EDDM is built for exactly that.

The rate is lower. EDDM's per-piece rate is meaningfully below what you'd pay to mail the same piece individually. That difference is most of the operator's margin.

Why 9x12? The size rule nobody explains

Here's the part that confuses almost everyone new to this: the card is 9x12 because of a postal classification, not because someone decided big postcards look nice.

USPS prices mail by category. A standard postcard is a letter. Something larger crosses into flat territory, and flats have their own dimensional requirements and rate structure. EDDM Retail is designed around flats.

So operators size their cards to sit comfortably inside the flat category — 9x12 being the most common choice, with 6x11 an increasingly popular smaller alternative. Get the dimensions wrong and your piece gets reclassified, repriced, or rejected at the counter, usually after you've already printed several thousand of them.

Check the current specifications on usps.com before you print. Dimensional rules, weight limits, and per-piece rates all get revised, and a guide written a year ago is a bad source for a number you're about to commit thousands of pieces to. This is the one part of the process worth verifying at the source every single time.

How an EDDM drop actually works

1. Pick your routes. USPS publishes a mapping tool showing carrier routes with household counts and basic demographics. You select routes, not addresses.
2. Confirm the piece qualifies. Size, weight, and the required indicia and address block placement.
3. Print. Most operators use a printer who runs EDDM work regularly, because they already know the layout requirements.
4. Bundle and paperwork. Pieces go in bundles with facing slips, plus the postal form. Every route gets its own bundle set.
5. Drop it off. At the post office that serves those routes — not just any post office.

Step 4 is where new operators lose an afternoon. Bundling rules are fussy, the paperwork is unforgiving, and a rejected drop means driving home with 2,500 postcards in your back seat.

What EDDM costs

Three costs, and only one of them is postage:

• Postage — the per-piece EDDM rate, times your drop size. Check USPS for the current rate.
• Printing — usually the largest line item, and it drops sharply with volume.
• Design — one-time if you build a template you reuse every drop.

The number that matters to you as an operator isn't any of those individually. It's your all-in cost per home reached, because that's what you compare against what you charge advertisers. Across live community cards, the median ad spot sells for $477 per mailing on a median drop of 2,500 pieces — roughly 19¢ per home per advertiser. Your job is to keep your all-in cost per home comfortably under what fourteen advertisers are collectively paying you for it.

EDDM versus a targeted mailing list

EDDM isn't better. It's different, and the difference is precision.

	EDDM	Targeted list
Who receives it	Every address on the route	Only the people you select
List cost	None	Per-record
Best for	Local saturation, repetition	Narrow, high-value targeting
Per-piece cost	Lower	Higher

If you're a roofer looking for homeowners with 20-year-old shingles in three specific zip codes, a targeted list wins.

If you're a pizza place that wants everyone within two miles to see your name four times this year, EDDM wins — and it isn't close.

Community cards live firmly in the second category. You're selling repetition and local presence to businesses whose customers are, by definition, nearby.

Common questions

Do I need a mailing permit? EDDM Retail is designed for smaller drops and doesn't require an annual permit. Higher-volume EDDM does. Volume thresholds change, so confirm before committing.

How many pieces can I mail per day? EDDM Retail caps daily volume per ZIP code. Most community card operators never approach the ceiling — the median drop is 2,500 pieces.

Can I choose which homes get it? No, and that's the point. You choose routes. Within a route, everyone gets it.

How long does delivery take? Carriers work EDDM in alongside regular mail, typically over several days rather than all at once. Tell your advertisers to expect a delivery window, not a delivery date — it's the most common expectation you'll have to manage.

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If you're weighing whether this is a business worth starting, the 9x12 method guide covers the economics end to end, including what operators actually charge and what a card realistically brings in.