Postcard campaign budgets: calculate break even honestly

What does a postcard campaign really cost?

Printing is only one line. A complete budget includes design, proofs, printing, shipping of the printed cards, postage, any list or route preparation, addressing or stamping labor, tracking setup and the time spent handling responses. Keep quoted amounts and actual amounts in separate columns until the campaign is finished.

Postage is often the largest single cost after printing. USPS Notice 123, effective July 12, 2026, lists First Class Mail retail postcards at $0.65 each and Every Door Direct Mail retail flats at $0.260 per piece. Check the current notice before you budget, because postage prices change.

How much does it cost to print and mail postcards?

Two common paths give very different totals. The figures below use current published prices and USPS retail postage; design and your own labor are not included.

Standard shipping is free on orders of $60 or more; smaller orders start at $5.99, with handling of 2 to 4 business days plus 5 to 8 days in transit. Build that time into the mailing date.

Which postcards qualify for the cheaper postcard rate?

USPS postcard pricing applies only to cards at least 3.5 x 5 inches and 0.007 inch thick, and no larger than 4.25 x 6 inches and 0.016 inch thick. Larger or thicker cards pay letter or flat prices. A 4 x 6 inch card on 0.4 mm stock, about 0.0157 inch, sits inside the limit, while 0.6 mm premium stock does not.

Every Door Direct Mail works differently. It delivers to every address on the chosen carrier routes, needs at least 200 pieces per mailing and, for retail drop off, allows up to 5,000 pieces per day per ZIP Code. Our postcard sizes and mailing guide compares the options, and the EDDM print checklist covers the physical requirements.

What is contribution per order, and why not use revenue?

Contribution is what remains from an additional sale after the costs of delivering it: product cost, packaging, payment fees, the discount you offered and any extra labor. Using the selling price instead overstates how much each order can repay. A $100 sale with $60 of variable cost and a $10 discount contributes $30, not $100.

Use a figure from your own records. If contribution varies a lot by product or customer, calculate a low, typical and high case.

For service businesses, contribution is often the job price minus materials, travel and the labor you would not otherwise pay. For repeat purchase businesses, some owners also estimate the value of a customer who returns, but keep that as a separate, clearly labeled scenario. Break even on the first order is the conservative test; break even over a year of repeat orders is an assumption that needs your own retention data behind it.

How do you calculate postcard break even?

Divide total campaign cost by contribution per incremental order and round up. The campaign break even calculator does this for you.

• Add every cost line, including design, shipping and postage.
• Estimate contribution per additional order from your records.
• Divide cost by contribution and round up to a whole order.
• Repeat with a lower and higher contribution to see the range.
• Compare the threshold with the number of cards mailed.

Using the EDDM example: $221.99 divided by $40 is 5.55, so 6 incremental orders cover the campaign. At $30 contribution the threshold rises to 8 orders. If design cost $150, the total becomes $371.99 and the threshold at $40 becomes 10 orders.

Why is attributed revenue not the same as incremental revenue?

Orders that use a postcard code or tagged link are attributed to the campaign, but some of those customers would have bought anyway. Break even should be measured against incremental orders, the ones the mailing added. The fairest way to estimate that share is to hold back a comparable group that receives nothing, or to compare matched routes, as explained in the guide to postcard A/B testing.

Avoid borrowing an industry response rate as a forecast for your audience. Budget with scenarios, then replace them with your own results.

How do you set a postcard budget you can defend?

Set the maximum you are willing to lose if the mailing adds nothing, then work backward to quantity. A budget built this way is easy to explain: it states the downside in dollars, the number of incremental orders needed to recover it and the date you will review the result. Start with a test mailing large enough to learn from, record cost per outcome, and scale only when the observed incremental orders clear the threshold. Standard postcards are available in small test quantities, which makes a stamped test possible before a larger route mailing.

What should you record after the campaign?

Record actual costs, cards mailed, mailing date, tracked visits, inquiries, orders, the contribution used and the observation window. Keep the artwork and route or list with the numbers. That record turns the next budget from an estimate into a comparison.