What is Every Door Direct Mail?

Every Door Direct Mail® is the cheapest and most effective way to “blanket” an area with direct mail and ensure that every person in an area gets your message in their mailbox.


What is Every Door Direct Mail?

Years ago, someone must have asked the question, “Why can’t I send mail to every house in an area without a list of addresses?” Because now, Every Door Direct Mail® does just that, and it’s more popular than ever.

According to the USPS, over 6 billion pieces of Every Door Direct Mail® (EDDM®) have been sent since mailing to every door became available eight years ago. If that trend continues, more EDDM® pieces will have been sent out by the end of 2020 than there are people on the Earth!

What it does

So why is Every Door Direct Mail® so popular? What does it do?

In short, EDDM® places a piece of mail in the mailbox of every address within a postal carrier route. Think of yourself as a mail carrier. You have a very specific route that you deliver to every day that has a certain number of addresses within it. EDDM® mailers are not addressed to these houses because they don’t need to be—every house gets one. So each time you deliver addressed mail to a house, you take one EDDM® and place it in the mailbox with the rest of the mail. By the time your route is done, you’ve got no more EDDM®’s left because you’ve placed one in every mailbox.

Picking routes

The real trick when using EDDM® is picking which routes to mail to. Some zip codes can contain as few as one carrier route while others can contain 25 or more. Each carrier route has a different amount of addresses too—some may have a couple dozen while others may have over 1,000. When mailing using Every Door Direct Mail®, a mailer can choose if they’d like to send to all addresses in a route, or only residential addresses. These types of mailing choices are dependent on what a business or organization is looking to achieve with their EDDM® project.

Size Details

Each EDDM® is required to be mailed as a flat, a post office categorization that has size specifications.

An EDDM® postcard must be at least 10.5” long or 6.125” high or 0.25” thick, while it must be less than 15” long, 12” high, and 0.75” thick.

It’s important to note that EDDM®s can be designed in a vertical orientation as well and don’t have to be postcards only but also brochures, newsletters, and other mailers that fit within the specifications.


EDDM® dimensions

Is EDDM® right for me? EDDM vs. Addressed Mail

Despite its growing popularity, EDDM® isn’t for everyone. The chart below explains some of the differences between EDDM® and addressed postcards mailing.



Addressed Mail

Mail to entire carrier routes

Mail to entire carrier routes or target individuals

Route selection is easy and free

Address selection is easy and highly customizable

Can target demographics at a carrier route level (neighborhoods with average income of 100k )

Can target demographics at a household level (households with income of 100k )

Great for marketing a product or service with a wide appeal (lawncare, heating, auto, pizza, etc.)

Great for marketing a product or service with a narrower appeal

The same postcard is delivered to all addresses

A personalized postcard can be delivered to each address

The cheapest way to mail to a mass audience

The best way to mail to a targeted audience


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