For most people, postage is something they rarely think about. When they need to mail a bulk mailing, they don't know what they don't know.
Suppose you work at a large church with 2500 members. Your church needs to mail a letter to all of the congregation. Here are your options:
Option #1: Organize a committee of volunteers to print and mail the letters
The cost to print your letters in-house may seem free but you will incur a "click cost" if you have a production printer. If you have a desktop printer, you will spend quite a bit on ink and paper.
More than likely you will need to order preprinted outgoing envelopes.
Assuming you can get your volunteers to show up, you will spend hours and hours folding and stuffing the letters.
Most people run to the post office and purchase stamps or use a postage meter to print the postage on to the letters. If you use stamps, the cost is .58 each. If you use a meter, the cost is .53 each but most meters cost about .05 each for the ink, so you still end up paying around .58 each. (If you use a meter, you also pay anywhere from $1200 to $5000 per year for the meter rental fee!)
Cost = $1450 postage + printing cost
Option #2: Let us print and mail your letters for you.
Since you are a church, we will help you get setup and approved to receive non-profit postage rates from the post office.
We will allow you to use our mail permit so you don't have to buy one.
We will print your letters and envelopes for you... complete with mailing addresses, postal barcodes and in postal sequence so you receive maximum postage discounts.
Your letters will be folded and inserted by machine. A mailing of 2500 will take us about 30-45 minutes to insert.
Your postage will be calculated at the non-profit postage rates. Assuming your mailing addresses are primarily within a few zip codes, most of your mail pieces will receive postage rates of .146 each
Cost = $365 postage + printing cost + mailing service cost
Assuming our printing cost is about the same as it would cost for you to print in-house, then it is much more expensive for you to handle your own mailing.