EDDM Printing Requirements: What Every Printer Needs to Know

Most printers can produce a piece that looks like an EDDM mailer. Fewer know all the requirements that determine whether it actually gets accepted and delivered.

After 28 years of running EDDM campaigns for businesses in New Paltz, Kingston, Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, and across the Hudson Valley, I can tell you exactly where jobs fail: the indicia placement, the facing slips, or the bundling. These are not design problems — they are production and fulfillment problems that happen after the piece comes off the press.

Here is every printing and production requirement that determines whether your EDDM job gets accepted at the post office counter or handed back to you.

The EDDM Retail Indicia

Every EDDM piece must carry an indicia in the upper right corner of the address face. For EDDM Retail, this is the EDDM Retail logo — a standardized USPS graphic that identifies the piece as EDDM and includes the word “PRSRT STD” and the mailer’s information.

The indicia must:

• Be placed in the upper right of the address panel
• Be clearly printed — not blurry, misregistered, or obscured by background design
• Not be cropped or partially covered by other design elements
• Include the correct text (“ECRWSS EDDM Retail” or approved equivalent depending on mail class)

Your printer supplies and applies the indicia during production. This is not something the client designs or provides — it comes from the printer’s USPS-approved template.

The Barcode Clear Zone

The bottom 2.125 inches of the address face is the USPS barcode clear zone. Nothing — no text, no photos, no borders, no graphics — can appear in this area. USPS applies delivery point barcodes to mail pieces at processing facilities, and any content in this zone either interferes with barcode application or causes automated sorting equipment to misread the piece.

The second clear zone: a 0.25 inch border around the address area on the right side of the address face, surrounding the indicia placement area.

The practical impact: When setting up your EDDM design, treat the bottom 2.125 inches of the address face as off-limits. Design your back panel with this constraint built in from the start — cramming a coupon or phone number into the bottom of the address panel after the fact is the most common layout mistake we see in client-submitted files.

Size and Weight: The Dimensional Requirements

These are the same requirements covered in EDDM sizes and specs, but worth restating for the printer’s checklist:

• Height (shorter dimension): 6.125” minimum, 12” maximum
• Length (longer dimension): 11.5” minimum, 15” maximum
• Thickness: 0.75” maximum
• Weight: 3.3 oz maximum

Pieces are measured and weighed at acceptance. If the finished, printed, folded piece (if applicable) exceeds any of these limits, the post office staff will decline the job.

Paper and Rigidity

USPS also applies an informal rigidity requirement — the piece must be stiff enough to pass through processing equipment without folding or sticking together. Counter staff at experienced USPS facilities know how to identify pieces that will cause problems.

Minimum acceptable paper: 80 lb. gloss cover. In practice, pieces below 80 lb. cover are rarely produced for EDDM because they look cheap and handle poorly, but they may also fail the informal rigidity check.

Standard production: 100 lb. gloss or matte cover for pieces up to 8.5x11. For larger formats, the same weight is used — heavier stock is not typically needed and adds weight that can approach the 3.3 oz limit.

Bundling: Where Most DIY Attempts Fail

EDDM pieces must be delivered to the post office bundled in specific quantities with specific documentation. This is the step where self-serve EDDM most often goes wrong.

Bundle size: Each bundle contains no fewer than 50 pieces and no more than 100 pieces. All pieces in a bundle must face the same direction. Bundles for different carrier routes must be physically separated — do not mix routes within a bundle.

Facing slips: Every bundle requires a completed USPS PS Form 3587 placed on top of the bundle. The form requires:

• Carrier route ID (e.g., R001, C006, B003)
• ZIP code of the route
• Piece count in that specific bundle
• Bundle number out of total bundles (e.g., Bundle 3 of 12)
• Mailing date
• Contact information

Errors on facing slips — wrong route ID, wrong count, missing information — result in rejection at the counter.

Total quantities: The total count on your facing slips must match the total pieces in your drop. Post office acceptance staff count bundles and spot-check quantities.

The Serving Post Office Requirement

For EDDM Retail, you must drop pieces at the specific USPS delivery unit that serves the carrier routes in your drop — not just the nearest post office. Every carrier route is physically based out of a specific USPS facility. If you bring a bundle for a carrier route in New Paltz to the Kingston post office, they will tell you to take it to the New Paltz facility.

This is the practical reason most businesses use a mail house for EDDM rather than handling it themselves. We know which facility serves which routes, and we handle the drop. If a campaign covers routes from two different delivery units, we make two drops.

File Requirements for EDDM Printing

When submitting files to your printer:

• Format: Print-ready PDF with bleeds, or native InDesign/Illustrator files with all fonts outlined and images embedded
• Color mode: CMYK only (not RGB)
• Resolution: 300 DPI minimum for photos, 600 DPI for line art and text
• Bleed: 0.125” on all sides
• Safe zone: 0.125” minimum, 0.25” preferred for critical content
• Address face: Include the correct clear zones (bottom 2.125”, indicia area) in your template or note them for the printer

At Cornerstone, we provide EDDM templates for all standard sizes and review every submitted file before sending to press. If your file has a clear zone violation, a color mode issue, or a dimension problem, we catch it before production rather than after the pieces are printed and the problem has to be fixed on your dime.

The Difference Between Online Printing and EDDM-Ready Printing

Many businesses get their first EDDM pieces printed by an online print shop — Vista Print, GotPrint, 4Over — and then discover the pieces are not EDDM-ready when they try to drop them at the post office. Online printers produce excellent commercial printing, but most do not include EDDM-specific preparation:

Missing indicia. Online printers print what you upload. If your file does not include the EDDM Retail indicia, the printed piece will not have it. Applying the indicia after printing requires a second print pass or hand-application of stickers — both of which are more expensive than doing it correctly the first time.

No bundling or facing slips. Online printers deliver finished pieces in boxes. They do not bundle in stacks of 50–100, they do not prepare USPS PS Form 3587 facing slips, and they do not organize bundles by carrier route. This entire step falls on you — and it takes 5–7 hours for a 5,000-piece job done correctly.

No post office drop. The printed pieces arrive at your location. Getting them to the correct USPS delivery unit, paying postage at the counter, and confirming acceptance is your responsibility.

No rejection recourse. If the pieces are the wrong size, wrong weight, or missing the barcode clear zone, the post office rejects the job. You have already paid the online printer. Reprinting is a second expense.

A full-service print shop that handles EDDM end-to-end — Cornerstone included — prints the indicia during production, bundles and prepares facing slips as part of the job, drops at the correct delivery unit, and guarantees USPS acceptance. The per-piece cost may be slightly higher than the cheapest online option, but the all-in cost including your time and risk of rejection is almost always lower.

Pre-Drop Checklist

Before any EDDM job leaves our facility, we verify every item on this checklist:

• ☐ Finished piece dimensions within EDDM flat range (6.125”–12” × 11.5”–15”)
• ☐ Weight under 3.3 oz (verified by scale, not estimated)
• ☐ EDDM Retail indicia present and correctly positioned
• ☐ Bottom 2.125” of address face clear of all design elements
• ☐ Paper stock meets rigidity requirement
• ☐ Bundles contain 50–100 pieces each, all facing same direction
• ☐ PS Form 3587 completed accurately for each bundle
• ☐ Route IDs on facing slips match routes served by the target delivery unit
• ☐ Total piece count on facing slips matches total pieces in the drop
• ☐ Correct delivery unit identified for each route group

This checklist is the difference between a drop that gets accepted in 10 minutes and a drop that gets rejected and requires a return trip with corrected materials. We have never had a prepared job rejected at the counter.

To start a quote or discuss your EDDM project, call (845) 255-5722 or request a quote.