On demand postcard/mailer printing company

[chakalakasp]

Just a post about an interesting service I recently discovered -- "postful.com". (I'm not affiliated in any way). One half of their service is postcard printing and mailing, and it seems to be useful to photographers who want to do small printruns of postcard mailers to clients. Cards run 59 cents a pop (that includes postage), and can be ordered in quantities as small as one. They print them, then mail them for you. All you do is upload whatever image you want on the front, put in whatever text you want on the left hand side of the card and then either manually type addresses in or upload a CSV file you exported from Excell or Outlook or whatever you use to manage addresses. At 59 cent a pop that's only 37 cents per post card once you subtract out postage, which is pretty damn cheap, considering that I don't have to purchase in packs of 500 like most postcard companies or run them through my printer myself to get the message and address on them. The other half of their service is letter mailing (with a direct email->letter option)... that half of their service doesn't have much use to me and a 99 cents per letter honestly I'm not sure who it would be of use to.

I asked several photo forums if anyone had heard of their postcard service and I didn't get much response, so I went ahead and did some test mailers. The post cards are good quality; thick, with good color repro on the fronts and a glossy finish on the back. They seem like they're printed with color laser, though I haven't grabbed a loupe yet to look up close. I've since sent out about 25 to various photo/art editors at mags and calendar/card companies. Most of the time, editors toss these things in the bin, but you're looking for that one time in a hundred. It cost like 15 bucks. I'll probably also do a run for people who've previously purchased my prints, reminding them that I still exist.