4 - Print Postage From Your Computer

This is a very cool and relatively new thing to come along. You don't have to wait in line at the post office, you can stay in your home and print out your shipping labels with complete postage on them. Priority, Media Mail, First Class, Parcel Post, International - you can do it yourself! (Unless you really like those long lines at the post office!)

The two main services at this time that you subscribe to and print from your own computer are Endicia.com and Stamps.com I've been a subscriber to both - I switched from Stamps.com to Endicia.com and am very very happy. This describes what I found out about both services based on my experience:

Both are excellent services - for about $15 a month you can print out your postage (you buy postage online that's extra through them - the $15 is a monthly fee) with bar codes, professional label, and .14 delivery confirmation. They both do Media Mail, and after the label is in place on your package you can drop it off in any blue mailbox instead of going to the Post Office.

Differences:

Layout

Stamps.com has one shipping label that is very ink usage heavy. If you're using an ink jet printer you will go through cartridges fast!

Endicia - Really nice layout/design tool (called Dazzle) that lets you move things around on the page and make the label look the way you want it to. You can add words, images, etc. My ink is going at least 3x as far.

Postage Discount

Endicia gives a postage discount on International shipments. Select "Small Priority Mail International" as your label and get a .55 discount on the postage.

Stamps does not.


Stats

Stamps.com will pull up the individual scans from the USPS on delivery confirmation.

Endicia pulls up the scans too - but also gives you statistics on how many packages you've sent, how many were priority, how many were first class, how many got scanned. You can see on their webpage a whole listing of all your items and when they were delivered, like in spreadsheet form.

Email confirmations

Stamps.com will send a generic "a package was sent to you" type email.

Endicia will let you customize your confirmation email message.

Sign up period

Stamps.com says it's first 30 days is a "Free Trial" but it's not really. It only is free IF you cancel on or by the 29th day. If you continue after the 29th day, you pay for the last 30 days. So there is not a free moment in there. They make it nearly IMPOSSIBLE to cancel - leave you waiting on the phone for an hour and then their rep either refuses to cancel the service or worse, tells you it's cancelled but you continue to get billed!

Endicia says the first 30 days are free. From what I can tell it means they are actually free and you start paying on Day 31 for the next month.

Integration

Stamps.com - didn't integrate with anything that I use

Endicia - whenever you copy an address to the clipboard in Windows while having Dazzle open, your address automatically gets placed into your label and gets verified as a valid USPS address. Nice - one click and it's ready to print.

Customer Service

Stamps.com - I wrote to them in January and again in February asking if the email confirmation messages could be customized. Never to this day did I get a reply of any kind, not even an automated one.

Endicia - wrote asking a question about email confirmation setup the day after I signed up and within 6 hours got a reply from an actual human that answered my question very well.

Perks/extras

Stamps.com gives you $25 in free postage. Plus a scale. You have to send in a post card with a current Stamps.com stamp on it. One post card per month. $10 in postage one month, $10 another month, $5 the third month, the scale on the fourth month. It will take you 4 months to get all of your freebies, but you do get them. You have to remember to mail each in at the right time, they can't be mailed in the same 30 days and can't be mailed in all at once.

Stamps.com has a class action lawsuit filed against it at this time that you may want to read about.

Endicia has no offers or gimmicks. Their service is reliable and upgrades to always be current with the postage rates and regulations.

Do yourself a favor and go with Endicia, and please do me a favor and use my number as a referral when you sign up - 544553 (I get a free month if you do!)