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Mailing Promotions and Incentives

Mailing Promotions are USPS's discount and incentives program for First-Class Mail and USPS Marketing Mail customers. Each promotion takes a percentage off postage, on the postage statement, for mail that meets its requirements. Mailers send USPS their mailpiece samples and their questions about the promotions through a portal.

Updated October 31, 202632 sources

What it is

A mailing promotion is a postage discount on mail that uses a treatment, technique or technology the promotion rewards. Each promotion runs for a set period, and the mail must be tendered for acceptance within it. Each one also names the mail it covers and its discount, such as 5% off First-Class Mail and USPS Marketing Mail for Integrated Technology in 2026.

A mailpiece or mailing gets one promotion discount at most. Using several qualifying technologies or print treatments on a mailpiece does not raise it.

An add-on raises the discount further by pairing a qualified mailpiece with a feature that adds to mail's reach, such as an Informed Delivery campaign. USPS introduced add-ons in 2025.

How it works

A mailer claims a promotion in the eDoc for its mailing, and PostalOne! applies the discount to the postage statement at the time of mailing. The discount comes off the normal prices in Notice 123, the published Price List. Mailings must go in electronically, through Mail.dat, Mail.XML or Postal Wizard.

The 2025-2026 Catalog Insights Promotion and both add-ons follow these steps.

  1. Design a mailpiece that meets the promotion's requirements.
  2. Upload electronic samples to the My Products Portal under Submit Mailpiece Pre-approval.
  3. Wait for USPS to review the samples and respond, within four business days.
  4. Register for the promotion in the Business Customer Gateway at least two hours before mailing.
  5. Submit the postage statements electronically and claim the promotion's CCR code.
  6. Send the mailing and keep a hard copy for the mailer's records.

In Mail.dat and Mail.XML, the mailer claims the discount with a two-letter characteristic code in the Component Characteristics Record file. A promotion's code has Type I, for incentive. An add-on's code has Type A.

The mailer also claims the promotion in the Incentive Claimed section of the electronic postage statement, certifying that each mailpiece meets every eligibility requirement. When another business prepares the mailing, the eDoc names the mail owner and the mail preparer in its By/For fields.

Guide to Promotions & Incentives Program

The Guide to Promotions & Incentives Program is USPS's PostalPro resource for taking part in Mailing Promotions. A mailer signs up in the Business Customer Gateway, under Mailing Services. There it requests access to the Incentives Program. USPS then enables the account and should send an approval email within 48 hours. The mailer finishes enrolling by following that email's instructions, and the My Products Portal page covers the portal itself.

Add-ons

Add-on discounts add to the promotion's percentage on eligible mailpieces. They raise the savings by 1 to 2%. A mailer may claim up to two add-ons with one promotion. A mailer registers for add-ons again each calendar year.

USPS offers two add-ons: Informed Delivery and Sustainability.

The Informed Delivery add-on rewards a mailing that runs an Informed Delivery campaign, which reaches recipients by email. The pre-approval sample includes the campaign's ride-along image and URL, and a representative image of the mailpiece for flats. The target URL must be live and lead to the right webpage. Mail eligible for it:

  • First-Class Mail automation letters, postcards and flats
  • USPS Marketing Mail automation letters and flats
  • USPS Marketing Mail DDU-entered Carrier Route Saturation Flats
  • Nonprofit USPS Marketing Mail automation letters and flats
  • Nonprofit USPS Marketing Mail DDU-entered Carrier Route Saturation Flats

The eDoc submitter of the postage statement earns a separate 0.5% incentive. It applies only to pieces that received the Informed Delivery add-on discount. To earn it, the eDoc submitter needs a permit linked to an EPS account. That permit must be linked to the submitter's CRID. The submitter registers the permit in the Business Customer Gateway's Manage Permit section.

The Sustainability add-on rewards a mailing whose paper comes from a certifiable, responsible source. The mailer shows a Sustainable Forestry Initiative or Forest Stewardship Council certification, or submits a certificate with a URL for review. The Promotions team reviews the certification and confirms eligibility. First-Class Mail letters, cards and flats are eligible. So are USPS Marketing Mail and Nonprofit USPS Marketing Mail letters and flats.

2026 Promotions Calendar and Technical Information

The 2026 Promotions Calendar and Technical Information is USPS's resource for the year's promotions. For each promotion and add-on, it gives the period, the CCR incentive code, the eligible mail and the discount. Every discount comes off at the postage statement line level.

PromotionPeriodCCR codeEligible mailDiscount
Integrated Technology6 consecutive months from a start date the mailer picksITFirst-Class Mail and USPS Marketing Mail5%
Tactile, Sensory, and InteractiveJanuary 1 to June 30SSFirst-Class Mail and USPS Marketing Mail5%
Continuous ContactApril 1 to December 31CC, Type C for the initial mailing and Type I for follow-upsUSPS Marketing Mail5%
First-Class Mail AdvertisingSeptember 1 to December 31FAFirst-Class Mail5%
Catalog InsightsOctober 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026CTUSPS Marketing Mail10%
Sustainability add-onAll yearSTFirst-Class Mail and USPS Marketing Mail1%
Informed Delivery add-onAll yearPIFirst-Class Mail and USPS Marketing Mail1% to mailers, and a 0.5% credit to the eDoc submitter

Tech Guides

2025-2026 Catalog Insights Promotion

The 2025-2026 Catalog Insights Promotion gave catalogs a 10% discount off the postage paid at the time of mailing. It ran from October 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026. Mailers could register from August 15, 2025 to June 30, 2026. A mailer claims it with CCR code CT and characteristic Type I.

For the promotion, a catalog is a bound mailpiece of at least 12 pages that lists products or services for sale. Its listing shows pictures of the products, descriptions, fulfillment information and prices, or a way to find the prices. It also carries a way to order, such as an order form, a phone number or a web address.

USPS Marketing Mail and Marketing Parcels are eligible. So are Nonprofit USPS Marketing Mail letters and flats that meet the nonprofit and catalog definitions. First-Class Mail, Periodicals, Bound Printed Matter and Media Mail are not.

The pre-approval sample has at least six double-sided, non-blank pages, one of them designated as the cover. In the My Products Portal, the mailer also answers every required question about the catalog. One asks for the share of its products or services sourced in the United States and abroad.

The eligible postage payment methods:

  • permit imprint
  • precanceled stamp permit
  • meter permit
  • OMAS and Official Government Mail
  • Every Door Direct Mail deposited at a Business Mail Entry Unit, but not EDDM Retail

A meter mailer affixes the reduced promotion amounts. Any net postage due comes from an advance deposit permit account.

Program Requirements

Informed Visibility Data Feed Instructions

The Informed Visibility Data Feed Instructions are a USPS resource for setting up a data feed. The feed carries payment transactions, with postage statement details, from Informed Visibility. Getting access needs the company's Business Service Administrator to grant it. The feed only reports forward and cannot retrieve historical data.

  1. In the Business Customer Gateway, open the Mailing Services tab.
  2. Open the Informed Visibility tab and select Get Access or Go to Service.
  3. In Informed Visibility, open the Create & Manage Data Feeds tab.
  4. Enter the Subscription Owner CRID, which the feed requires.
  5. Set the feed data type to Payment transactions.
  6. Set the file format to a delimited file with a comma delimiter.
  7. Leave Define Target blank.
  8. Choose how often the feed arrives.
  9. Give the feed a name to recognize it by.
  10. Select the entity under Company Name.
  11. Check Postage Statement Details, add all its data fields, and create the feed.
  12. Download the feed from the Output History section.

User Guides

Rules

The add-on rule is the 2026 calendar's. The others are the rules of the 2025-2026 Catalog Insights Promotion, which ran from October 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026.

The discount must be claimed at the time of mailing during the promotion period and cannot be rebated at a later date.

A mailer must claim the discount when it mails, within the promotion period. A discount not claimed then cannot be rebated later.

Only one promotion discount can be applied to a mailpiece or mailing.

A mailpiece or mailing can get only one promotion discount. Add-ons are separate and can be added to it.

In order to claim an Add-On, you must be eligible for and claim a Promotion (e.g., Integrated Technology).

A mailer must qualify for and claim a promotion to claim an add-on. An add-on alone earns no discount.

Promotion eligible mailings must be finalized in PostalOne! no earlier than 12:00:00 AM Central Time the day the promotion starts and no later than 11:59:59 PM Central Time on the last day of the promotion.

A mailing must be finalized in PostalOne! between 12:00:00 AM Central Time on the promotion's first day and 11:59:59 PM Central Time on its last.

One of the parties in the by/for of the postage statement must be registered for the promotion.

The mail owner or the mail preparer named in the postage statement's By/For fields must be registered for the promotion.

The mailpiece must meet the requirements for a *Catalog.

A mailpiece must meet the promotion's catalog definition to get the discount.

All mailers who receive the discount must retain all hard copy mailpieces for 90 calendar days after the promotion end date and if requested by the Postal Service, must forward the sample to the Promotion Program Office.

A mailer that gets the discount must keep every hard copy mailpiece for 90 calendar days after the promotion ends. It must send a sample to the Promotion Program Office when USPS asks.

The promotion discount can be applied to qualifying pieces within a combined or commingled mailing, but the qualifying mail must be submitted on separate postage statements or by mailpiece version.

In a combined or commingled mailing, the qualifying pieces must be submitted on separate postage statements or as their own mailpiece version.

What goes wrong

  • A mail diversion message on the mailpiece makes the mailing ineligible, whatever treatment or technology it uses.
  • A final mailpiece that differs from the samples submitted for pre-approval can lose the discount.
  • A mailing whose prototype has no written approval before the entry date does not qualify.
  • Approval in a past year's promotion does not guarantee approval in the current year's.
  • A mailing accepted and paid for before the promotion starts gets no discount.
  • A PVDS mailing cannot be verified or drop shipped before the promotion's first day.
  • A qualifying PVDS mailing paid for during the promotion is accepted at destination facilities 15 calendar days after the end date.
  • Reply Mail IMbA is not eligible for add-ons.

The 90 days for keeping samples start at postage statement finalization in one rule, and at the promotion end date in another. Each sample is marked with the mail owner's name and CRID, the postage statement ID, the job ID and the finalization date.

The Promotions Office runs random audits. An audited mailer has 15 business days to send the sample with its approved Service Request. A mailer that cannot furnish proof can have its discounts reversed.

About 80% of postage statement errors for the Informed Delivery add-on have one of two causes. The campaign is not in Submitted or Active status when the eDoc arrives. Or the mailing dates fall outside the campaign's timeline.

When PostalOne! problems stop postage statements from finalizing during a promotion, the mailer follows the PostalOne! Contingency Plan on PostalPro.

What the sources leave open

The sources do not say how the Informed Visibility payment feed is used with the promotions.

Terms

Mailing PromotionsPromotions & Incentives Program
the Postal Service’s discount and incentives program for First-Class and Marketing Mail customers
Add-On
a series of add-ons to USPS® Mailing Promotions, through which you can increase your Promotion discount by pairing your qualified mailpiece with features that enhance mail’s reach and ROI
incentive
Any price reduction (i.e., discount) to a postal product or service relative to the next highest relevant price or a rebate for the use of a product or service based on various requirements such as mailer-specific volumes.
Component Characteristics RecordCCR, Component Characteristic Record, Component Characteristics Record File
The component characteristics record designates the content of the mailpiece, applicable incentive and/or applicable fee.
postage statementmailing statement
Documentation provided by a mailer to USPS that reports the type and volume of mail being presented, type of postage method used, processing category of the mail, total weight of the mailing, and other required information and certifies that the mail meets the applicable eligibility standards for the prices and fees claimed. Postage statement data can be submitted electronically or on hardcopy using official USPS forms or approved mailer facsimiles of those forms.
eDoc submitter
the mailer who submitted the electronic documentation for the mailing
Mail OwnerMO
the business entity, organization, or individual who makes business decisions regarding the mailpiece content, directly benefits from the mailing, and ultimately pays for the postage on the mailpiece directly or by way of a Mail Service Provider
Plant-Verified Drop ShipmentPVDS
A procedure that enables origin verification and postage payment for shipments transported by the mailer from the mailer’s plant to destination postal facilities for acceptance as mail.
Ride-along Image
The required Ride-along Image is a clickable color image that directs the user to the Target URL.
data feedIV-MTR data feeds, Data Feed (Subscription)
a recurring search (subscription) that provides results at a specified interval

Contacts

  • Questions about promotion requirements go through the My Products Portal.
  • Questions about how the portal works go to mailingpromotions@usps.gov.
  • The Promotions Office answers every inquiry within 4 business days.
  • For enrollment or technical problems, the PostalOne! Helpdesk answers through the Mailing & Shipping Solutions Center, at 1-877-672-0007 or MSSC@USPS.gov.
  • On that phone line, callers select option 2 for the center, then option 3 for PostalOne!.

Sources