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Postage indicia is the printed mark in an envelope's top-right corner that takes the place of a stamp. You have seen it on bulk mail and business letters: a small printed box saying something like "U.S. Postage Paid" with a permit number and city. It proves postage was paid through a permit, a postage meter, or an online postage account rather than with an adhesive stamp.
| Type of indicia | What it looks like | Who uses it |
|---|---|---|
| Permit imprint | Printed box: "U.S. Postage Paid," permit number, mailing city | Businesses sending bulk or presorted mail under a USPS permit |
| Postage meter mark | Printed mark with date, amount, and meter number | Offices with a postage meter; the amount is set per piece |
| Online postage (PC postage) | Barcode-like label or printed square with postage data | Anyone printing postage from a computer or phone |
| Adhesive stamp | The familiar stamp | Everyone; the default for one-off letters |
A stamp is prepaid postage you buy in advance and stick on. Indicia is postage accounted for differently: with a permit imprint, the mailer holds a permit with the post office and the postage is charged to their account when the mailing is presented. With a meter, postage is purchased in advance and stored in the meter, then printed onto each envelope. With online postage, you buy the exact postage for one piece and print it. All three are equally valid postage; the sorting machines read them all.
One practical difference: indicia carries information a stamp does not. A meter mark shows the mailing date, which is why metered mail technically should be mailed on the date printed (the post office tolerates a day or two). A permit imprint shows the permit holder's city, which is why bulk mail often says "mailed from" a city nowhere near the sender: it was mailed under a permit held in that city.
For ordinary one-off letters, no permit or meter is needed: stamps or online postage are simpler and cheaper. Permit imprints only make sense with a mailing permit, which involves an application and an annual fee, so it pays off only at volume. Postage meters made sense when offices mailed hundreds of letters a day; today, online postage services have mostly replaced them for small businesses, because you print exactly what you need with no hardware.
The case where most people actually encounter indicia without realizing it: nonprofit mail, utility bills, and bank statements almost always carry permit imprints. If your electric bill has a printed box instead of a stamp in the corner, that is indicia, and it tells you the bill went out as part of a presorted bulk mailing.
Not by itself. The mark is just how postage was paid; the mail class printed alongside it (First-Class, Marketing Mail, and so on) decides the handling. A first-class letter with a meter mark moves exactly like a first-class letter with a stamp. The confusion comes from correlation: most permit-imprint mail is bulk Marketing Mail, which moves slower, so people blame the printed box for the speed. It is the class, not the mark.
There is one real operational difference worth knowing. Mail with a permit imprint must be presented at the post office with paperwork identifying the permit; you cannot just drop a tray of permit-imprint mail in a blue collection box. Stamped and metered first-class mail can go in any collection box. This is why indicia is a business-mail tool: it comes with a process.
Canada Post recognizes the same concepts under slightly different names: meter impressions from postage meters, and permit-based indicia for business mailings. The visual is similar: a printed mark in the top-right corner replacing the stamp. If you receive Canadian business mail with a printed postage mark, it works exactly like its US counterpart and moves through Canada Post's system the same way.
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