Marketing Mail Letters Workshare Discounts

The U.S. Postal Service offers a postage rate discount to mailers for presorting, pre-barcoding, handling, or transporting of mail. These workshare discounts incentivize mailers to perform specific activities that the Postal Service would otherwise have to perform. They allow the Postal Service to increase operational efficiencies, avoid some mailing costs, stimulate mail volume growth, and improve service. Our objective was to assess the accuracy and reliability of the Marketing Mail letters cost-avoidance model used to develop mail processing workshare discounts.