Perhaps the most familiar method of paying postage, stamps are small pieces of gummed paper issued and sold by a government for attachment to an article that needs to be mailed. First-Class Mail stamps are used for most everyday purposes, such as correspondence and bills, and may be used for domestic and international mailings.  Stamps are also available for other classes of mail, such as Priority Mail® and Express Mail®.

After opening the proper postal permit (there is no fee for such a permit), bulk mailers may use precancelled stamps for Presorted First-Class, Presorted Standard and Nonprofit Standard Mail—bulk mailers may choose to do this for the same reasons (below) that others affix stamps.

Pros: Paying postage with stamps conveys a human touch—most people associate stamps with personal mail and believe that stamps have been applied by hand.  Because stamps allow you to personalize your mail, you increase the chance that someone will open your package by paying its postage with stamps.  Stamps also provide convenience—because you pay for postage upon purchase of stamps, you may deposit any appropriately stamped parcel directly into the mail stream anywhere in the country.  You may give your stamped parcels directly to your letter carrier or drop them in a postal collection box for parcels.

Cons: Although stamps are available in a range of denominations from $0.01 to under $14.00, one downside of using stamps for postage payment is that you may need more than one stamp to meet the full payment amount.  Stamps prove especially challenging if you need to pay for extra postal services like Delivery Confirmation™.   Plus, although prepayment provides convenience, it also makes lost or stolen stamps a costly problem for volume users.

For additional information, see related articles: “Parcels: Ways to Pay Postage”, “Parcels: Paying with Meters”, “Parcels: Paying with PC Postage”, and “Parcels: Paying with Permits.”

Window Book’s postal shipping software—Postal Package Partner™—supports shippers using stamps by facilitating package preparation and labeling, postal acceptance, postage management and parcel tracking.