1: The Basics
Franked mail is cheaper than standard mail – and that’s the main reason for switching to it.
To frank your mail, you need a franking machine and a contract with Royal Mail
2: Topping up
The franking machine needs to have credit on it in order to print the franking labels. You will be asked to estimate your monthly spend and that amount will be deducted from your account every month. This ties up cashflow, of course, but then so would buying stamps or using SmartStamp.
The essential difference is that it costs you money to fill it up. This is the equivalent of having to pay a shop and extra couple of quid when you buy a topup voucher for your mobile.
3: Parcels
We send a lot of our products by parcel post. Guess what Parcel post does not offer a franking discount! This immediately reduces the benefit to us in having a franking machine. Any item over 1KG cannot be sent second class and so the choice is either sending it first class or via parcel post, our customers don’t want to pay for the former and the latter offers no saving to us.
4: Same day
All franked mail needs to be at the post office or sorting office the same day: if you miss the deadline then unlike with stamps you lose the lot. One cockup could cost a fortune.
5: Don’t expect good service
Our experience has been poor. Most franking machine companies didn’t even bother to respond to our enquiries. The one that did provided reasonable upfront service but despite knowing that we were novices and what our business was about, didn’t let us know about parcel post or the costs of topping up in advance. The machine wasn’t set up for us, so I spent a morning doing this and the support since the sale has been poor to say the least.
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