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Home > Guides > Stamps vs. metered vs. online postage
Stamps, metered mail, and online postage all pay the same postal bill three different ways. Stamps are prepaid stickers anyone can buy; metered mail prints postage from a leased machine built for businesses; online postage lets you print a postage mark from your own computer. The envelope looks different, but the letter rides the same trucks.
| Stamps | Metered mail | Online postage | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it looks like | A physical stamp (or stamps) stuck in the top-right corner, cancelled with a postmark at the plant. | A printed mark called an indicia: no stamp, no postmark needed. | An indicia printed on a label or directly on the envelope from your own printer. |
| Who uses it | Everyone: individuals, small volumes. | Businesses and offices mailing daily volume. | Individuals and small businesses who want exact postage without a trip to buy stamps. |
| How you pay | Buy stamps in advance at the post office or online; stick one on per letter. | Preload a postage account, then the meter prints the exact postage per piece. | Buy postage through a licensed online vendor and print it yourself. |
| Equipment | None. | A postage meter: leased, not bought. | An ordinary printer. |
A stamp is prepaid postage in sticker form: the post office has already been paid when you bought it. The stamp's job is to say "postage paid" and to be cancelled: the wavy postmark lines struck across it at the sorting plant, so it cannot be reused. That is the whole technology, and it has worked for nearly two centuries. Stamps are the right choice when you mail occasionally and do not mind keeping a book of them in a drawer.
Metered mail replaces the stamp with an indicia: a printed rectangle showing the postage amount, the date, and the mailer's ID, usually with a two-dimensional barcode. A postage meter prints it directly onto the envelope (or a tape stuck to the envelope) at the exact postage for that piece: no guessing which stamp, no overpaying.
Two things surprise people about meters. First, in the United States you cannot buy a postage meter outright: meters must be leased from an authorized provider, because the device is essentially a licensed money-printing machine and the postal service keeps strict control over it. Second, metered mail skips the cancellation step: since the indicia is printed with the date and cannot be peeled off and reused, the post office does not need to postmark it, which gives it a slightly smoother path through sorting.
Online postage (sometimes called PC postage) is the indicia idea without the leased hardware. Licensed vendors let you buy postage online and print the indicia on your own printer, on a label or straight onto the envelope. It carries the same kind of 2D barcode as metered indicia, encoding the postage paid, the date, and the mailer. It is a receipt as much as a stamp: if the barcode will not scan, the postage record behind it still says it was paid.
The catch is that online postage still leaves you doing the printing, folding, and enveloping yourself. It solves the stamp problem, not the printer problem. If you want the whole job handled (print, envelope, postage, and the trip to the mailstream), that is what a service like LetterAgent does: one quoted price covers everything, and you never touch a stamp, a meter, or an envelope.
Ready to mail it? Send your letter with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and it's 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.
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