USPS Intelligent Mail Barcodes for Envelopes and Cards

USPS uses Intelligent Mail Barcodes mainly for automated sorting and routing. They can also be used for tracking the mail, since each barcode can contain a unique tracking number. IMBs have nothing to do with paying the postage.

You are never required to print barcodes on your letter-sized or flat-sized mail. USPS will do that if you don't (and sometimes even if you do). But here's why you may want to print the barcodes for them:

• If you're preparing a bulk mailing, USPS offers a small discount off the regular bulk mail prices if you add a barcode. And your mail will skip the barcoding step at USPS, so it might move a little faster.
  
  
• If all your bulk mailings use complete "full-service" barcodes, USPS waives the annual $390 fee that they charge to send some kinds of discounted bulk mail.
  
  
• If you're a business, you can track your bulk mail and even your regular First Class mail by printing a barcode on your mail and signing up for USPS' free tracking service.
  

For ordinary retail First Class mail, there's really no reason to print a barcode on it unless you're a business mailer and want to track it. You don't get a postage discount off the regular price for adding a barcode. And your mail won't travel any faster, because retail mail all comes in together whether it's barcoded or not. It's going to go through USPS' barcoding machine either way.

Most of the savings in bulk mailing comes from sorting, not from barcoding, but barcoding can add to your savings.

For example, for a normal #10 business envelope, you'd typically pay the following postage:

The savings for barcoding are greater for pieces that cost more to mail. For example, for an 8½" by 11" envelope, you'd typically pay the following postage:

For authorized nonprofit mailers, the Marketing Mail rates are lower than those shown, but the savings from adding barcodes is about the same. The exact bulk mail rate depends on where the mail is going.

You can use our free postage rate calculators to see the differences between barcoded and nonbarcoded postage for your particular mailing. Choose the calculator you need for Marketing Mail bulk mail, Presorted First Class, Periodicals Class, or Bound Printed Matter.

Remember, there is no discount for using barcodes on regular retail First Class mail, but business mailers can add barcodes to First Class mail to get free tracking.

To send mail at Marketing Mail rates or First Class Presort rates, you must generally pay an Annual Mailing Fee to USPS, currently $390.

The Annual Mailing Fee is also required to mail Bound Printed Matter flats if you are claiming "destination entry" discounts, meaning you are getting a discount for submitting the mail to the post office or sorting facility that serves where the pieces are addressed.

To encourage you to barcode your mail, USPS will waive this annual permit fee if you do two three things:

√ Use Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMBs) on all of your bulk mail.

√ Choose the "full-service" option when creating your IMBs.
(The other option is "basic-service", which gets you most of the postage savings but does not qualify for the fee waiver. Your barcoding software should let you choose either full-service or basic-service.)

If you want USPS to waive the permit fee, you have to ask USPS to do so when you apply for or renew the permit! Otherwise, USPS staff may just go ahead and charge you the fee without mentioning the waiver. And once you pay it, you can't get it back.

If you are applying for or renewing your permit online, make sure not to select the option to pay the Annual Mailing Fee. The USPS online permit system does not clearly show that your permit will be issued even if you don't select the charge. But you don't need to pay that charge.

If USPS waives your fee and then you bring in a bulk mailing that is not barcoded, you will be required to pay the fee before your mail will be processed. You must establish a year's "clean" history before you can renew your permit without paying the fee.

The fee waiver applies only to the Annual Mailing Fee. If you will be using a permit imprint (aka "indicia") instead of stamps to pay your postage, the one-time (not annual) Permit Imprint Authorization Fee is not waived. This can be confusing, because the two fees are the same price.

The fee waiver also does not apply to fees for Periodicals Class mailings.

To create Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMBs) for USPS bulk mail or tracking, you need:

√ Postal barcoding software to create the barcodes.

√ An Intelligent Barcode font, to print the barcodes.

√ If you're using mailing labels, labels that are at least 3½" wide. (The typical 3-column per page labels are not wide enough.)

√ A 6-digit or 9-digit Mailer ID from USPS, that identifies you as the mailer.

√ If you are claiming a discount for adding barcodes to bulk mail, a Cass-certified zip+4 code and 2-digit "delivery-point" code for each address. You do not need full zip+4 codes or delivery point codes if you are adding the barcode just to track your mail and not claiming an extra discount.

Here are details on each:

Software to create the barcodes: To create IMBs, software goes through a series of steps to combine all the required information into a row of 65 bars. You have to use specialized software to do this. You can't do it with a simple Excel formula.

We offer three software apps that create and print Intelligent Mail barcodes.

• Postage $aver Pro is a complete package for preparing bulk mailings, including sorting, postal paperwork, and printing addresses with barcodes. It's our most popular software.
  
  
• Postal Barcoder Max creates USPS barcodes for many different kinds of outgoing mail and reply mail, for individual pieces of mail or entire mailing list files. It includes a tool for tracking outgoing and reply mail.
  
  
• Quick Lettertracker creates and prints barcodes for individual pieces of First Class mail only. It includes a tool for tracking any barcoded outgoing mail. It's our simplest barcoding product.

An IMB font: You need a font like our SmartBars 12 font to print the barcodes.

Barcode software creates barcodes as a set of 65 characters, all either A, D, T or F. The font converts each character into a corresponding bar and prints the bar instead of the letter. If you don't have the font, all you'll see is a row of 65 letters.

The SmartBars 12 font is included free with Postage $aver Pro and Postal Barcoder Max. (It is not needed for printing barcodes using Quick Lettertracker.) You can also purchase SmartBars 12 separately.

Labels: If you're using labels for your addresses, they need to be wide enough for the barcodes to fit, with space left over on each side. Barcodes are anywhere from 2.7" to 3.25" wide, depending on your software and printer, plus at least 1/8" margin on the left and right sides.

Your labels should be at least 3½" wide to allow for variations in software, printers, and alignment. That means the 3-across letter-size label sheets won't work. If you're using letter-size label sheets, the 2-across styles should work.

Mailer ID: A USPS Mailer ID (MID) is a nine-digit number that uniquely identifies you as a mailer. (For large volume mailers, the Mailer ID is only six digits.) The Mailer ID is a different number from any other number you have from USPS. It is not your permit number, your CRID number, or your nonprofit authorization number.

If you don't know your Mailer ID, or have not yet been issued one, you can find it or have one issued on the USPS Business Customer Gateway. Log in to the Gateway, click Mailing Services at the top, scroll down to Mailer ID, and click "Go to Service".

"CASS-certified" zip+4 and "delivery point" codes: If you are claiming a barcoding discount on a bulk mailing, each barcode must include a verified zip+4 code and an additional 2-digit "delivery point" code. Except for small mailings where these can be looked up by hand, USPS requires that you have your list checked by special "CASS-certified" software, which verifies or corrects your zip codes and adds the delivery-point code for each address.

Software to do CASS certification is generally too expensive to be worthwhile for small to medium-volume mailers to own. Instead, there are vendors that will provide this service for a very low cost. Our CASS certification page has more information, including low-cost CASS-certification vendors for small-quantity mailers, and details on how to look up a few addresses by hand.

If you are already having your list matched to the National Change of Address system to meet the Move Update requirement, the list will be CASS-certified as part of that process.

If you are buying a mailing list and intend to use it for a barcoded mailing, be sure to ask the vendor if the list is CASS-certified. If not, you will have to pay a vendor to do it after already paying for the list.

If you are just using the barcodes to track your mail and not claiming a discount for barcoding, then CASS-certification, zip+4 codes and delivery-point codes are not required.

If you're printing barcodes on standard #10 business envelopes, here's where they can go: (Otherwise, see these USPS guides for where to put barcodes on letter-sized or postcard-sized mail, or on flat-sized mail.)

As part of the address: You can print the IMB either above the recipient's name, or below the city, state and zip code line. If you use an address keyline or an optional endorsement line, the barcode can be either above or below these lines. (If you don't know what those are, you probably aren't using them so don't worry about it.)

Intelligent Mail barcodes must be separated from the nearest printing by at least 0.028" above and below. The barcode can be no more than 5/8" above or below the nearest line of the address. And, there must be at least 1/8" space between the barcode and any printing to its left or right. The barcode must be at least 1/2" from both the left and right edges of the envelope, and at least 5/8" from the bottom of the envelope.

If you use a label for the address and barcode: The barcode must meet the requirements above for being part of the address. Plus, the barcode must be at least 1/8" from the left and right edges of the label, and separated from the top and bottom of the label by at least 0.028". IMBs will not reliably fit on labels that are 3-columns to a page.

In the lower right-hand corner of the envelope: The left end of the barcode must be between 3 1/2" and 4 1/4" from the right edge of the envelope. Vertically, the barcode must be located between 3/16" and 1/2" from the bottom of the envelope.

You must always use black ink for the barcodes. If you are printing your barcodes using an IMB font, like our SmartBars 12 font, you must use the font size specified in the instructions for the font. For SmartBars 12, you must use 12 point as the font size.

You must not make the barcode larger or smaller to fit your layout, nor use the "fit to page" option in your printer properties. And, you must not print them in bold, italics, or some other variation.

There are two different categories of barcodes for postcards, letters and flats: "full-service" and "basic-service". The software you use to create your barcodes will probably ask you to choose one or the other.

There's very little difference between the two, but there's a slightly larger postage discount for full-service barcodes compared to basic-service. And, USPS will waive your Annual Mailing Fee only if you use full-service barcodes, not baric-service barcodes. For a small-volume bulk mailer, that's a big deal.

So it almost always makes sense to select full-service instead of basic-service.

Why would you ever use basic-service barcodes on a bulk mailing, when full-service barcodes are better?

If your mailing has less than 50,000 pieces, there's really no reason to use basic-service instead of full-service.

But to mail full-service barcoded mailings of 50,000 pieces or more, USPS requires you to submit special electronic files, called Mail.dat or Mail.xml, with your mailing. The software to create these files is expensive, so it might be cheaper for you to use basic-service instead of full-service and pay the annual mailing fee instead of buying the software you would need to create the electronic files.

Also, the only way to submit a bulk mailing with both full-service barcoded pieces and nonbarcoded pieces is with a Mail.dat or Mail.xml file. If you are creating mailings that are mostly have full-service barcodes, but you have a few pieces for which you don't have the required nine-digit zip code or delivery-point code, and you don't want to buy Mail.dat software, you need to either remove the nonbarcoded pieces from your bulk mailing or use basic-service barcoding instead of full-service.

But for most small to medium volume mailers, full-service barcoding is the way to go!

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