Meters price mail, not parcels
The case for a meter is a daily pile of letters and flats. If your volume is parcels, the meter solves a problem you do not have.
Leased, never sold
What a postage meter costs, and when you do not need one
A postage meter cannot be bought. The Domestic Mail Manual states that meters may only be leased or rented and may not be sold or resold, so the cost is a recurring lease from one of four approved providers, plus the postage itself, plus an agreement with USPS. We do not sell meters, letter postage or mail services of any kind: we sell US domestic parcel labels, which need no lease and no meter.
DMM 604 quotedFour approved providersNo lease to sign here
One label, one payment
A parcel label is bought per shipment and printed on plain paper. There is no meter to reset and no contract to end.
What the rules actually say
Meters sit inside a USPS framework called postage evidencing systems, and the Domestic Mail Manual sets out how they work. Four provisions do most of the work, read at pe.usps.com on 2026-07-28.
- The definition. A postage evidencing system is a device or system of components a customer uses to print evidence that postage required for mailing has been paid (DMM 604.4.0).
- The lease rule. Meters may only be leased or rented and may not be sold or resold (DMM 604.4.1.2).
- The providers. DMM 604.4.1.3 lists four approved meter providers: Data-Pac Mailing Systems Corp, FP Mailing Solutions, Pitney Bowes Inc and Quadient Inc. A separate section, DMM 604.4.1.4, lists approved PC Postage providers.
- The agreement. Customers must enter into an agreement with the USPS for authorization to use postage evidencing systems (DMM 604.4.2), and a system must be surrendered on termination of the lease or rental agreement.
That is the shape of the commitment. You are renting hardware from a private company, under an authorization held with USPS, for as long as the agreement runs. It is a sensible arrangement for an office posting stacks of letters every day and a strange one for anyone posting a few parcels a week.
Why there is no lease price on this page
Most pages ranking for this question quote a monthly figure. We could not source one we would stand behind on 2026-07-28, so none appears here. Lease pricing is quoted per configuration by each provider, changes without notice, and is not published as a plain list price on the pages we could reach.
If you are getting quotes, ask each provider for a written monthly total that separates the equipment lease from the postage account, and ask what happens at the end of the term. Those two questions cover most of the surprises people describe afterwards.
One thing worth knowing before you start: a meter prices mail. Parcels bought electronically are priced from the commercial column of the USPS price list whether or not any meter is involved, so the meter is not the thing making postage cheaper.
The same box, eight cities, nothing leased
For the parcel side of the comparison, here is one 12 x 10 x 6 in box at 5 lb leaving Newark, NJ 07102 on 2026-07-28, quoted to eight destinations. These are the cheapest rates returned, and each is the entire amount collected at checkout.
| Destination | Cheapest rate returned | Price | Transit window returned |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hoboken, NJ 07030 | UPS Ground Saver | $10.37 | none returned |
| Philadelphia, PA 19102 | UPS Ground Saver | $10.37 | none returned |
| Atlanta, GA 30303 | UPS Ground Saver | $13.52 | none returned |
| Chicago, IL 60601 | UPS Ground Saver, tied with USPS Ground Advantage | $14.02 | none returned |
| Dallas, TX 75201 | UPS Ground Saver | $15.49 | none returned |
| Denver, CO 80202 | UPS Ground Saver | $16.47 | none returned |
| Los Angeles, CA 90011 | UPS Ground Saver | $19.14 | none returned |
| Seattle, WA 98101 | UPS Ground Saver | $19.14 | none returned |
One service took the bottom of every list here, and it returns a price without a stated transit window, so the last column stays empty rather than carrying a guess. Faster rows came back at every destination and appear on the quote screen next to these.
Nothing above required an account, a lease, a deposit or a minimum. That is the actual comparison with a meter: one payment per shipment against a recurring agreement.
What our own plans cost, for completeness
Since this is a page about recurring costs, ours belong on it. Quoting is free forever on the Free plan, which allows 15 quotes a month and 3 without an account. Pro is $24 a month and Business is $79 a month, billed monthly and cancellable at any time, and annual billing works out to $19 and $64 a month respectively. The Pro trial runs 14 days with no card.
Buying a single label needs none of that. Plans exist for people who ship often enough to want the extras, and the full breakdown lives on our pricing page rather than being summarised twice.
Ask about the end of the term
The Domestic Mail Manual requires a system to be surrendered when the lease or rental agreement ends. Find out what that involves before it becomes relevant.
Plain paper is enough for a parcel
A label printed on a home printer and taped flat across the largest face scans exactly like one from dedicated hardware.
Meters and PC Postage, answered
Can you buy a postage meter outright?
No. The Domestic Mail Manual states that meters may only be leased or rented and may not be sold or resold, and it names four approved meter providers: Data-Pac Mailing Systems Corp, FP Mailing Solutions, Pitney Bowes Inc and Quadient Inc.
How much does a postage meter cost per month?
This page puts no number on that. No provider page we could reach on 2026-07-28 published a current lease price we were able to quote, and a stale figure is worse than none at all. Ask a provider for a written monthly total before signing, since the lease and the postage are billed separately.
What is PC Postage?
It is the software route to printing postage, run under the same USPS authorization framework as meters. The Domestic Mail Manual lists approved PC Postage providers in their own section, separate from the four meter manufacturers.
Do I need a meter to ship parcels?
Not for parcels. A parcel label is bought per shipment, printed on plain paper and taped to the box, with nothing leased and nothing metered. On 2026-07-28 the same 5 lb box priced at $10.37 to nearby ZIPs and $19.14 to Seattle through our checkout.