Share Mail®

Share Mail® (formerly Alternate Postage) provides a mechanism for businesses and organizations to use the mail to share information, not only with their customers but to have those customers send the Share Mail letters and postcards to other parties — without their having to affix a stamp.

Who is Share Mail for?

Businesses and organizations who wish to use mail for referral marketing.

First Class Mail

First Class Mail

Latest Updates

Description

Share Mail (formerly Alternate Postage) provides a mechanism for businesses and organizations to use the mail to share information, not only with their customers but to have those customers send the Share Mail letters and postcards to other parties — without their having to affix a stamp. Postage is paid by the Share Mail account holder who produces and distributes the mailpieces.

Businesses and organizations who sign up for Share Mail can distribute Share Mail letters and postcards to franchises and customers (most businesses enclose the Share Mail piece within a mailpiece). Recipients of the mailpiece can then forward the enclosed Share Mail piece to others by depositing it into the mailstream as they would with other domestic, single-piece First-Class Mail. Share Mail relies on Intelligent Mail barcode® (IMb) technology to identify and count each mailpiece as it moves through mail processing equipment.

Prior to enrolling applicants must have the following:

  1. USPS Business Customer Gateway account
  2. USPS Enterprise Payment System (EPS) account
  3. Valid Business Reply Mail or Postage Due Permit linked to the EPS account
  4. Ability to print  a static or unique IMb on each mailpiece

Featured Resources

Publications
02/28/2017
Publication 600 - Share Mail

The purpose of this publication is to describe the use of Share Mail (previously referred to as Alternate Postage) on First-Class Mail single-piece letters or postcards bearing an Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb).

Quick Service Guides
12/15/2016
Share Mail™ Layout Guidelines

This document provides guidelines for Share Mail dimensions, Facing Identification Marks (FIMs), Indicia, and the submission process.

FAQs
09/13/2019
Share Mail™ FAQ

This document covers FAQs for Share Mail, including submission requirements, payments and reporting, and general product questions.

Technical Specifications
FIM-E Template

FIM-E is used for postcard-size and letter-size First-Class Mail with customized services. The FIM-E template provides the properly formatted pattern for Share Mail.

Fact Sheets
02/09/2017
Share Mail™ Sales Sheet

This sales sheet provides an overview of Share Mail, including how it works, features, and examples.

Tools
Barcode Decoder/Encoder

The IMb encoder and decoder tool allows you to convert Intelligent Mail® barcodes into numeric equivalents, or vice versa.

Contact

For more information, contact [email protected].