LetterAgent
Mail physical letters by just asking your AI assistant.
Home > Guides > No postage necessary
It means the company named on the envelope pays the postage, not you. This line appears on business reply envelopes: the permit holder covers the postage plus a small handling fee for each piece that comes back. Do not add your own stamp, and for the free return to work, the envelope must be mailed from inside the United States.
The company does, through a system called Business Reply Mail. A business buys a permit from USPS and prints a special postage indicia (that box in the upper right corner) instead of a stamp. When your reply enters the mailstream, USPS delivers it and bills the permit holder for the postage plus a small per-piece fee. Here is how the money actually flows:
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Who pays? | The permit holder, not the sender. |
| When are they charged? | Only when a reply piece is actually delivered back to them. |
| Do unmailed envelopes cost them anything? | No. Envelopes you throw away cost the company nothing. |
| Does your own stamp reduce their bill? | No. The piece is charged to the permit regardless, so a stamp you add is wasted. |
| Can you mail it from Canada or abroad? | No. The US indicia is only honored by USPS; abroad you must pay postage yourself. |
No, and postal rules say the indicia should be the only postage marking on the piece. A business reply envelope is counted and charged against the permit holder's account based on that printed indicia, so a stamp you stick on top changes nothing about their bill. It can actually slow processing, since a piece carrying both an indicia and a stamp may be pulled aside for manual handling. The whole point of the system is that your side of the transaction costs zero.
That condition is literal. The permit authorizes free postage only through the United States Postal Service. If you drop the envelope in a mailbox in Toronto, London, or anywhere outside the US, the local postal service will not honor a US permit indicia. Canada Post, for example, has no obligation to deliver it, and the piece may come back to you for postage or be discarded. If you are abroad and need to return a business reply card, buy your own postage and address a plain envelope to the company instead.
Yes, Canada Post offers Business Reply Mail, but the mechanics differ. A Canadian company needs a business reply agreement on file, and its envelopes typically read "No postage required if mailed in Canada" with an agreement number printed in the postage area. Like the US version, the permit holder pays only for pieces that come back. The parallel is close enough that Canadians seeing the US phrase on a US company's envelope should treat it the same way: drop it in a US mailbox with no stamp, or pay your own postage from Canada.
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