LetterAgent
Mail physical letters by just asking your AI assistant.
Home > Guides > Door-to-door delivery ending
Yes. Canada Post is winding down door-to-door delivery, converting roughly 4 million addresses to community mailboxes in phases spread over several years. Your street address does not change, and letters reach you exactly as before. The only difference is the pickup point: a locked compartment in a shared neighbourhood box instead of a slot in your front door.
Canada Post serves one address, one box. Under door-to-door, a carrier walks each street and drops mail through your door slot or into your porch box. Under the conversion, a bank of locked mailboxes is installed nearby, and each household gets one compartment plus a key. The conversion is rolling out street by street rather than all at once, so your neighbourhood will get advance notice before its turn.
| Door-to-door | Community mailbox | |
|---|---|---|
| Where mail arrives | Your door slot or porch box | Your locked compartment in a shared bank |
| Small parcels | Left at the door or carded | Placed in a parcel compartment; the key appears inside your regular compartment |
| Registered mail pickup | Delivery notice at your door; pick up at the post office | Delivery notice left in your compartment; same post office pickup |
| Your mailing address | Unchanged | Unchanged |
| Outgoing mail | Hand to the carrier or find a box | Slot in the same community box bank |
Delivering to a shared bank of boxes takes a fraction of the walking time of serving every door, and letter volumes have been falling for years. Community mailboxes have been standard in newer suburbs since the 1980s, so this change extends an old model to older streets rather than inventing a new one. Canada Post tried a similar conversion program in the early 2010s, paused it in 2015, and has now returned to it as part of a larger plan to bring the corporation back toward financial health.
Practically everything. The address format does not change, postage does not change, and delivery speed to the recipient's box is the same as delivery to a door slot used to be. Certified-style services keep working: registered mail simply means a pickup card appears in the recipient's compartment instead of on their doorstep. If you mail letters through LetterAgent, nothing about the process changes on your end. You describe the letter to your AI assistant, approve the quoted price, and it is printed and mailed to a US or Canadian address exactly as before.
Canada Post mails out the compartment keys and instructions before your street's conversion date, so you do not need to apply or pay. A few practical steps help the switch go smoothly:
For most households, no. Conversion applies by street, and individual opt-outs are not part of the plan. People with mobility or medical needs can request an accommodation through Canada Post's process for accessible delivery, which is assessed case by case. Apartments and condos already use lobby boxes or parcel lockers, so they are unaffected.
Ready to mail it? Send your letter with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and it is printed and mailed.
LetterAgent is a working name. Prices include print, postage, and our service fee. US prices in USD, Canadian prices in CAD (Canadian prices exclude applicable sales tax, added at checkout). Currently in private testing.
Need help? Ask your assistant: it can check a job's status any time. If it ever can't handle something: hello@getletteragent.com