pf » PostalMethods - Web Service for Snail Mail

July 27, 2008

PostalMethods - Web Service for Snail Mail

PostalMethods Logo I just noticed PostalMethods a new SOAP web service / API for sending snail mail via the US Postal Service. This service is from the folks at InterFax who have a nice web service for sending Faxes as well.

It was nice to see that they have code samples for ColdFusion!

Some potential uses for this new service:

Mailing Address Verification - you can send an automated letter with a personalized code, and have them enter in the code to your web site.
Security Nofications - You can send a letter to a users mailing address, when the account email or password is changed for verification purposes.
Promotional Codes - Setup a scheduled task that runs through your customers and sends out a certain amount of coupons each month.
Lots More - What would you use it for?

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Comments

On 07/28/2008 at 7:28:51 AM MDT Ben Nadel wrote:

That is pretty darn cool!

On 07/28/2008 at 7:46:29 AM MDT Pete Freitag wrote:

Yeah it is, you can basically just give them a PDF and an address, and they mail it. What I think is really cool about these types of services, is that it allows for smaller businesses to do things that only big businesses could have in the past.

On 07/28/2008 at 7:48:21 AM MDT Ben Nadel wrote:

I definitely want to make some time to try this out, if only for fun.

On 07/28/2008 at 7:53:55 AM MDT Pete Freitag wrote:

Yeah, they have free developer accounts that doesn't actually send the letter but can be used to test out code to call their web services.

On 07/28/2008 at 7:58:24 AM MDT Ben Nadel wrote:

I didn't really look at the setup, I just liked the idea. Is this designed for business only? Or can anyone use it for some flat per-letter cost.

You don't have to answer that, I can just read the docs - I was just thinking out loud.

On 07/28/2008 at 8:39:00 AM MDT Pete Freitag wrote:

Yes, you can prepay as little as $10, which at that rate gets you $1.20 per one page letter, the more you prepay, the cheaper it cost you to send a letter. Then they also charge for additional pages, and other stuff, check out this page for more info: http://www.postalmethods.com/pricing

On 07/28/2008 at 9:23:50 AM MDT Ben Nadel wrote:

1.20 per letter... grumble grumble grumble. Hmmm.

On 07/28/2008 at 9:36:29 AM MDT Pete Freitag wrote:

Yeah, my initial reaction was the same, but as I thought about it... it probably prevents the service from being used for sending junk mail, which is a good thing. If you prepay $1000 the cost is down to $0.79

It would be cool if they offered other types of mailings too, such as post cards, etc... but this is a great start.

On 07/28/2008 at 9:40:01 AM MDT Ben Nadel wrote:

I guess it also becomes a question of "How much is my time worth?" Which is more valuable - the extra dollar on the letter? Or the 30 minutes I save having to prepare it and then find a mail box?

I like to think i'm worth more :)