The Pinellas Card

Pinellas County, Florida

Sixteen local businesses split one 9×12 postcard. It lands in 10,000 mailboxes.

Direct mail works. Paying for it alone is what kills it. Share a card with fifteen other Pinellas businesses and your ad reaches ten thousand homes for $350 — about three and a half cents a household.

An oversized 9 by 12 inch advertising card lying face-up on a small stack of envelopes on a sunlit kitchen counter.

The arithmetic, in the open

Most direct mail companies won't quote you a price until you've sat through a meeting. Here is ours, and here is what it's built on. Every number below comes from USPS's own route data and published postage rates — you can check all of it yourself.

Homes per mailing
10,000Real USPS residential delivery points, not estimates
Entry price
$350One column ad space
Cost per household
3.5¢$350 spread across 10,000 homes
Envelope to open
NoneA 9×12 card arrives face-up in the stack

Why a big card instead of a coupon envelope

Nothing to open

A coupon envelope has to be opened before anyone sees your ad. A 9×12 card is nine inches by twelve inches of full-colour print sitting face-up on top of the mail. It gets seen on the walk back from the mailbox whether or not it gets kept.

Sixteen businesses, not forty

We cap the card at sixteen spaces. Your ad is one of sixteen, not one of forty coupons fanned out on a kitchen counter. Fewer advertisers means a bigger ad and a card people can actually read.

One business per category

One roofer. One HVAC company. One pool service. If you're on the card, your competitor isn't — not on that card, not in that mailing. Categories are first come, first served.

You pick the neighborhood

Mailings are built from USPS carrier routes, so coverage follows real streets rather than a rough radius. Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Safety Harbor, Seminole, north St. Pete — you see the exact route list before you commit.

What it costs to be on the card

Three sizes. Prices are per mailing, paid up front, artwork and design included. No contracts, no auto-renew, no annual commitment.

A printed 9 by 12 inch card showing the four ad space sizes: a double space at $1,000 or 10 cents per household, a standard space at $600 or 6 cents, and two column spaces at $350 or 3.5 cents each. Sixteen spaces across both sides, mailed to 10,000 Pinellas homes.
One side of the card. The other side holds the same eight spaces, for sixteen in total. Arrangement varies from card to card — the sizes and prices do not.
Column
$350
3.5¢ per household
  • One column space
  • Best for a single coupon or offer
  • Design included
Details
Standard · most chosen
$600
6¢ per household
  • Two column spaces
  • Room for an offer plus proof
  • Design included
Details
Double
$1,000
10¢ per household
  • Four column spaces
  • Largest space on the card
  • Design included
Details

Full pricing, sizes and what's included →

Straight answers

How is this cheaper than mailing my own postcard?

Because sixteen businesses split one print run and one postage bill. Mailing your own 9×12 card to 10,000 Pinellas homes costs roughly $4,200 once you've paid for printing, USPS EDDM postage at 26 cents a piece, and prep. Split sixteen ways, a space starts at $350.

How does this compare to Valpak?

On price, closely — Valpak's Blue Envelope runs about 3 to 5 cents a household and a column space here is 3.5 cents. The difference is format. Valpak is an envelope that has to be opened, with your coupon among many. This is a single large card that's visible without any action from the recipient. We wrote up the full comparison, including what Valpak actually costs, on our Valpak pricing page.

Which neighborhoods do you mail?

Pinellas County. Each mailing is a defined set of USPS carrier routes, and you see the route list and home count before you buy. Current and upcoming zones are on the coverage page, along with the residential counts for every ZIP in the county.

Do I need to supply artwork?

No. Design is included. Send a logo, your offer, and a phone number and you'll get a proof back to approve. If you already have artwork sized to the space, we'll use it.

When do you mail?

A card mails once its spaces are sold and artwork is approved. If a card doesn't fill, it doesn't mail and you're refunded in full — we'd rather refund you than send a half-empty card with your ad on it.

Spaces on the next card

Categories are one-per-card and go first come, first served. Tell us your business and your neighborhood and we'll send back the current card mockup with the open spaces marked.