Our Local Spotlight, and what it does not cover

Our Local Spotlight is a directory of community card operators — a map that businesses and homeowners can browse by location to find an operator near them.

This page exists because operators regularly ask whether a listing replaces having a campaign site of their own. It does not, and the reason is worth understanding before you pay for either.

What a directory listing is

A listing is a discovery channel. Someone looking for a community card operator in their area can find you on a map that also lists other operators. That is a real and useful function, and it is the function directories have performed since directories existed.

Their own FAQ is clear about the boundaries: they state that they do not run marketing campaigns and are not affiliated with the operators listed. Selling the spots, designing the card, choosing routes, collecting money and getting the drop mailed all remain the operator’s work.

What it costs

At the time of writing, the directory pin is included with a $44/month community membership, and a landing page tier adds a further $33/month — $77/month for both, or $528 to $924 a year depending on which tier you take.

Pricing changes. Check their current pages before deciding; this figure is what was published when this page was last updated.

What it does not do

A directory listing, by design, does not:

• Run under your own brand. Your listing sits on their domain alongside other operators, including ones in adjacent markets.
• Show your actual card. A local business deciding whether to spend $500 wants to see the card, the squares that are gone, and the ones that are left.
• Show your coverage. Which routes, how many households, which mail date.
• Take an advertiser’s money. There is no mechanism in a directory listing for a business to buy square 4 and have it lock.

None of that is a criticism. A directory is not supposed to do those things. It is only a problem if you were expecting a listing to be the whole of your web presence.

The division of labour

Job	Directory listing	Your own campaign site
Be findable by someone browsing for an operator	Yes	Indirectly, via search
Rank for “postcard advertising in [your city]”	On their domain	On yours
Run under your brand and domain	No	Yes
Show the live card with sold and open spots	No	Yes
Show routes, household counts and mail date	No	Yes
Collect payment for a spot	No	Yes
Own the advertiser relationship and the data	Shared	Yours

The sensible arrangement is both, pointed at each other: the listing does discovery, and it links to your own domain where the actual selling happens.

What a campaign site adds

Your own domain. Advertisers look you up before they spend $500. What they find decides the sale, and “a pin on somebody else’s map” is a weaker result than a site with your name on it.

The live card. Your actual layout, with the sold squares filled and the open ones priced. This is the single most persuasive object in the entire sales process, and it cannot exist in a directory row.

Real coverage data. The USPS routes you selected, with household counts — so an advertiser can see exactly which homes get the card.

A checkout. An advertiser taps the square they want and pays on their phone, through your own Stripe account. The square marks itself sold. No invoice, no payment link, no chasing.

Being findable under your own name. Your pages are built so search engines can read them properly, so a business searching for direct mail in your town finds you — not a directory that lists you alongside other operators.

Pricing here

Building a campaign site — the card, the routes, the prices, the whole thing — is free. A plan starts when you publish the campaign and switch on checkout, from $97/month on the founding rate. See pricing for the plans.

That is more than a directory listing costs, and it is a different product. If what you need is a pin on a map, a directory is the cheaper answer. If what you need is a place for a local business to look at your card and pay for a square, that is this.