EDDM routes are the USPS carrier routes you choose in the Every Door Direct Mail Online Tool. Your postcard goes to every address on each route you pick, with no mailing list to buy. You find routes by searching an address, a city and state, or a ZIP Code, and one mailing can cover several routes.
That last part is where the money gets made or lost. A carrier route was drawn for a mail truck. It might run through a subdivision where most of the roofs went on in the same few years, then cross a main road into newer townhomes that won't need a tear-off for a long time. The carrier delivers to both, and you pay for both.
How do you view USPS routes for EDDM?
You view EDDM routes in the USPS EDDM Online Tool, where you search by address, city and state, or ZIP Code and then select the neighborhoods you want your mailer to reach.
Start with the ZIP where your crews already work. A mailer that books a job forty minutes across town eats into the margin on that job before the first shingle comes off. From there, look at the routes one at a time instead of taking the whole ZIP. USPS lets you select multiple routes for a single mailing, so there is no reason to keep a route you don't want just to fill out an order.
One habit pays for itself. Before you check a box, pull up street view on two or three streets in that route. You can spot a tired roof from the curb faster than any map can tell you. If the route is mostly roofs that were clearly replaced in the last few years, leave it off.
How much does USPS charge for EDDM?
USPS lists EDDM Retail marketing flats at $0.26 per piece on its current EDDM page, which gives no effective date, so confirm the rate before you budget a drop.
That figure is postage. Printing and design are separate line items. At $0.26, the smallest EDDM Retail mailing of 200 pieces comes to $52 in postage, and the daily ceiling of 5,000 pieces runs $1,300. The 5,000 ceiling applies per day, per ZIP Code.
Cost per piece is the number on the USPS page. Cost per signed job is the number that runs your business. Postage on 2,000 postcards is $520. If those 2,000 cards land on streets where roofs are due and one re-roof signs, that job was cheap to win. If half of them land on roofs with fifteen good years left, you paid to reach homeowners who had no reason to call.
Is EDDM worth it for a roofing company?
EDDM is worth it for a roofer when the routes you pick hold a high share of homes whose roofs are likely due, because every piece on a route gets delivered and every piece gets paid for.
Mail has trade-offs, and they are worth stating plainly. It costs money per piece. A postcard can't answer a question at the door. Calls come in over weeks, not the same afternoon. What mail does well is put your name in front of homeowners who haven't called three roofers yet. A shared lead is fast, but you're racing other companies to the same phone number. A mailer to the right route reaches the homes nobody else is working, and plenty of roofers run both for that reason.
The common mistake is mailing a whole ZIP because it's one click. The fix is in the route list.
What is the cheapest way to do EDDM?
The cheapest way to do EDDM is to mail fewer, better routes through EDDM Retail, which needs no special mailing permit, and to cut the routes where roofs are unlikely to be due.
Dropping a route you don't need saves more than shaving a cent off printing. Here is a hypothetical. Say the routes in a Southside ZIP add up to 6,000 addresses and you mail all of them over two days. That's $1,560 in postage. Now say only a third of those homes sit on routes with older roofs. Mail just those 2,000 addresses and postage drops to $520, and every card goes to a home with a reason to read it.
Splitting the ZIP also lets you test. Mail one batch of routes this month, track which cards produce calls, and decide on the next batch with real numbers in hand.
How do you do EDDM with USPS?
You do EDDM with USPS by choosing your routes in the Online Tool, paying the postage, and bringing the printed, bundled postcards in for delivery to every address on those routes.
Where you drop the mail and how the bundles are prepared is its own topic. Our post on EDDM and the BMEU covers when a drop goes to a Business Mail Entry Unit instead of your local Post Office and how to time it so cards hit the streets you picked. The card itself, from the indicia block to roof-age copy that stays inside Florida's rules, is covered in our EDDM template guide.
How should a roofer choose which EDDM routes to mail?
Choose EDDM routes by roof age first and drive time second: mail the routes where the most homes are likely due for a re-roof and that sit inside the area your crews already cover.
Because USPS delivers to every address on your selected routes, you can't skip the house with the new metal roof halfway down the block. Your only filter is which routes you pick. That makes the route list your targeting decision, and the better your read on roof age, the less postage you throw away.
To get that read, look up the year each house was built and its re-roof permit history. A house built in the late 1990s with no roof permit since is a very different prospect from one that pulled a re-roof permit in 2021. Line those records up against a route and you can see, before you spend a dollar, whether it's mostly due roofs or mostly fresh ones.
This week, pick one ZIP, open the tool, and mark the two or three routes you would knock first if you could only knock those. Those are the routes to mail.
If you'd rather start from a ranked list of Duval County homes whose roofs are likely due, Roof Identifier offers a free ZIP Roof Report for your ZIP, and you can check whether your ZIP is still open under Territory Lock, which keeps each ZIP to one roofer.
Frequently asked questions
Can I skip certain houses on an EDDM route?
Not for targeting. EDDM delivers to every address on each route you select, so your filter is which routes you pick. The Do Not Deliver Address column USPS provides is for customers who asked to be removed.
Do I need a mailing permit for EDDM?
Not for EDDM Retail. USPS states that no special mailing permit is needed for EDDM Retail mailings.
What is the minimum and maximum for an EDDM Retail mailing?
USPS sets EDDM Retail at a minimum of 200 pieces and a maximum of 5,000 pieces per day per ZIP Code. At the listed $0.26 per piece, that is $52 to $1,300 in postage.
Do I need a mailing list to use EDDM?
No. Because EDDM goes to every address on the routes you choose, you select neighborhoods in the Online Tool instead of buying or uploading names and addresses.