Calculator

How many ad spots cover your 9x12 mailing costs?

Printing, USPS postage and your break-even point, from published rate cards rather than a guess. A 5,000-piece 9x12 drop costs $2,509 for printing and postage. In this illustration, 6 collected spots at the $477 advertised median cover that subtotal, before other expenses.

This calculator is for the shared-card operator selling ad space. It measures how collected spot revenue covers a mailing budget. It does not estimate the customers or sales an advertiser will get from the card.

Card format

Households on your routes

This estimate uses the same count for printing and postage. A printer may require a larger order quantity than your exact delivery count. EDDM Retail limits still apply per day and ZIP Code.

Spots on the card

Spots you sell

Price per spot

Advertised median across 76 live operator sites is $477.

Who bundles and drops it

You do — budget your time The printer does — about 7¢ a piece

Printing$1,209

USPS EDDM postage 26¢ A PIECE — YOU CANNOT NEGOTIATE THIS ONE$1,300

Mailing subtotal$2,509

Cost per home reached50¢

Collected spots to cover this subtotal6

Revenue from spots sold$5,724

Before other expenses$3,215

Printing interpolates between published rate-card tiers; postage is the flat USPS EDDM Retail rate. Neither is a quote — get one from your printer, and check the postage at usps.com before you budget, because it is the number that changes without anyone telling you. The full line-by-line breakdown is here.

What this does not include

Design. Your time or a designer’s quote. The Canva sizes are here.
Card processing. The applicable fees on your payment processor’s account.
Software. Whatever you use to build the card and take the money.
Your time selling. The largest real cost in this business and the one nothing prices.

The number that actually matters

Not the total. The break-even spot count.

Your print and postage are fixed the moment you choose your routes. Your revenue is not. So the whole business is the gap between the spot that covers your costs and the last one you sell — each additional collected spot contributes toward the other expenses and any eventual profit.

It is also why you collect before you print. Check collected payments against the full budget before committing to print.

Sources and scope

USPS: Every Door Direct Mail — Primary source for Retail postage, mailing limits, route selection and preparation. Checked September 13, 2026; verify again before ordering a mailing.
High Response Marketing / Printing4SuperCheap rate card — Published 14pt, full-color printing inputs, checked September 13, 2026. Shipping terms and preparation extras must be checked with the provider before ordering.
9x12 Tools Community Card Pricing Survey (2026) — Our published snapshot of advertised prices on 76 operator sites across 81 markets. It does not measure completed sales, profit or success rates; the underlying records are not public.

Published by 9x12 Tools, which sells software for community card operators. Read our sources and corrections policy.

Next step

Pick your actual routes and the household count stops being a guess.

Real USPS carrier routes with live household counts, cost per door as you select, and a ranked prospect list generated when you save routes. Free to build; paid to publish and take payments.

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