Already mail merged letters & mailing (Letter Printing & Mailing)
Choose this product if you plan to do the mail merge for your letters and envelopes, and you need Bulk Mail Printing Services. iti Direct Mail is not your typical Bulk Mailing Company; we offer a variety of services not offered by other Bulk Mailing Companies out there. Make your letters stand out by selecting from a range of paper and envelope stocks, plus add additional marketing material for an even more powerful impact. With the ability to print on letters, legal-size sheets, and one to three different-sized envelopes at once, you will be able to get your printing jobs done quickly. We'll manage the entire production process as well as your Bulk Mail Printing Services and even mail them out on your behalf! After mail merging your own letters and envelopes, you will upload a single PDF for letters and one PDF for envelopes. No need to upload a mailing list. We will print all your material, inset your letters into envelopes along with any optional marketing material, seal them, apply stamps, and take them to the Post Office. Only regular first-class postage is available for this product; no presorts. To qualify for presort postage, choose our standard letter printing product, where you will upload your mailing list, which we can presort and mail at discounted postage rates. This product does not include the postage cost. Configure your order and add it into the cart, and the system will ask you to add the postage at a later stage during checkout.
You can only upload already mailed merged documents if your order will be mailed using ONLY 1st class regular postage. All jobs mailed using presort postage classes (1st class presort, standard class presort and nonprofit presort) require special processing and sorting, which requires us to mail merge your job; therefore, you cannot upload already mail merged documents since they will not be in the sortation required by USPS. Additionally, all presort jobs must be barcoded. If you have mail merged your mail pieces, we will not be able to sort/resort them in a manner required by USPS; therefore, they can only be mailed via 1st class regular, which does NOT require any special sorting or barcoding.
Letter setup
It is your responsibility to ensure that all the merged letters and envelopes are in the correct order. We highly recommend that you confirm the accuracy of the information from the letter to the envelope on your first and last piece as well as some random pieces in the middle of your job. Also, confirm a matching quantity of pages in the letter file versus the envelope file; for instance, a 1000-piece one-page letter order should have 1000 pages both in the letter and envelope PDF file.
- Multi-page orders: In a multi-page order, all the pages need to be sequential regardless of whether you choose a single-sided or double-sided printing. For instance, in a 2-page order, your PDF file will begin with page 1 then 2 then page 1 again. Therefore, if you order a 1000 two-page order, your PDF for letters needs to be 2000 pages, but your envelope PDF will be 1000 pages.
- Full bleed letters must include a minimum of 1/16” bleed on every side.
- Non-full bleed letters must have a minimum of ¼” clear margin on every side.
- Graphics: We highly recommend a minimum of 300 dpi for all graphics or your print job may appear low quality.
- All photos, graphics, signatures, or other elements need to be included in your letter.
- Mailing date: Nothing in your merged PDFs can be modified, including your mailing date. If you include a mailing date in your letter, it will be printed as shown.
Envelope setup
You must upload a PDF file for your envelopes.
- Handwritten fonts: You can choose any handwritten fonts available on your computer, as you are mail merging your own envelopes. However, you will need to ensure that you embed your handwritten fonts in the PDF so that they print correctly.
- Full bleed envelopes: This letter printing product only supports envelopes that do not have full bleeds, which means you must have at least a ¼” clear margin on all four sides. Your envelopes must be ordered separately if you need to use full-bleed envelopes with your letters.
- Graphics: All graphics must be included in the uploaded PDF. We highly recommend a minimum of 300 dpi for graphics, or your print may not look high quality.
- Addressing zone: This page shows the areas that must be left clear for addressing, USPS barcoding, and postage.
Adding additional items to your letter printing order
You can also include additional items with your letter. Below are some of our common options.
- Remit or reply envelopes
- Flyers & brochures
- Business cards
- Small slips
Configure your letter printing product on this page and Add to Cart. After uploading your letter and list you will be given the option to add any of the above items before checking out.
Templates
FAQs
When you send us letters and envelopes that are already printed and addressed (mail-merged), we must use First Class Regular (Forever) stamps. We are not able to use discounted bulk rates like Standard or Presort mail. The need for regular stamps comes down to two main rules set by the U.S. Post Office (USPS).
First, to qualify for a bulk mail discount, the Post Office forces us to clean up and verify every single address on your list. This means we have to automatically update addresses for people who have moved or remove any address the system can't find. If we performed this cleanup after your letters were already printed, the addresses on your physical mail might suddenly be wrong or even deleted. By using regular First Class stamps, we skip this mandatory step. This guarantees that your printed addresses stay exactly as you intended and match your documents.
Second, discounted bulk mail requires us to add a special barcode right onto the mail and sort the letters in a highly specific way into trays. Since your letters are already printed and merged, we can't go back and add those barcodes or re-sort them to meet the USPS's strict demands. Regular First Class postage doesn't require any of these extra steps, which makes it the only viable option for your pre-addressed mailing.
The single most important rule is that your file of letters and your file of envelopes must be in the exact same order. This perfect sequence is crucial because our printing equipment works by matching the files sequentially: it prints the first letter, immediately prints the first envelope, then the second letter, the second envelope, and so on. We assume that the items belong together because they are next in line. If the files are not perfectly matched, we have to stop our machines and manually figure out which letter goes with which envelope. This takes a huge amount of time, and we would have to charge you a lot more for that manual work.
If you can't get your letters and envelopes perfectly matched up, we recommend placing a standard letter printing order instead. For that service, you simply send us three separate files (your mailing list, letter design, and envelope design), and we handle all the merging and matching for you.
Choosing to submit your letters already merged is best for you primarily if you don't have a separate mailing list file. If all the recipient addresses are already included within your letter and envelope documents, this is the only way to submit your job to us. This option is also suitable if you have a small job (50 pieces or less) and want to save a little money by doing the merging work yourself.
A Smoother Alternative for Small Jobs (50 pieces or less)
If your order is 50 pieces or less and you do have a separate mailing list file, we generally suggest using our Low Volume Letter Printing product instead. With this product, you send us your three separate files: the mailing list, the letter template, and the envelope template. We then handle all the technical merging and processing. This process is usually smoother and more reliable, giving you a better finished product than trying to match everything up manually on your own computer.
Yes, you can absolutely add extra printed materials, such as business cards or flyers, with your mail-merged letters. Because you are submitting the letters and envelopes as one complete package, you will need to add the extra items to your order in a few steps. First, add your Mail-Merged Letters and Envelopes to your cart. Next, add the required First Class Postage stamps product (a pop-up will guide you). Finally, go to the product tabs and add the specific business cards, flyers, or other inserts you want to include. Your cart will contain all three components, and we will process them together.