Buying or renting a franking machine: does it pay enough?
Processing your outgoing business mail yourself takes a lot of time and money. Of course, it gets easier with a franking machine, but time and technology never stand still. So we have to ask the question: is buying or renting a franking machine still the most economical way to process outgoing business mail?
Franking machines did indeed put an end to the days of sticking on stamps manually. But preparing your mail for sending still requires several actions: buying or renting a franking machine from a certified distributor, loading postage credit, indicating in the device which type of mail you want to send, having that mail weighed by the device, and then having the letters or packages postmarked.
Still takes a lot of time
So preparing your mail remains a time-consuming task. You still have to deploy staff to have all the mail items franked by the machine. Time you can’t buy back for your people to do other tasks that are more relevant to your core business.
Moreover, you depend entirely on your franking machine to be able to send your mail. If your device fails due to a technical problem, there is no choice but to wait for technical help. As a result, important business mail such as invoices and reminders can’t go out in time.
That adds even more to the costs.
But the biggest drawback when using franking machines are the high costs involved. Buying or even renting a franking machine is expensive. And you have to add in the annual cost of a maintenance contract, as well as the purchase of the necessary ink cartridges and labels.
On top of that, some suppliers charge an extra fee if you buy franking credit for the machine too many times a month. And we mustn’t forget to add in the 'human' expense: the wages of your employees. All those costs together add up to a very high sum. It’s a sum that not every company has a budget for (or wants to spend), and so they look for another solution for their mail processing.
On top of all that, this
Last but not least: a franking machine works with standard postal rates, which don’t take into account the volume of your outgoing mail. If you choose to buy or rent a franking machine, you can’t enjoy discounts or volume benefits.
At the same time, expensive human errors can occur in the mail processing. For example, not adjusting the settings of the previous franked shipment to the new shipment, so you frank too much, with an unnecessary extra cost. Or too little, resulting in the return of the mail, lost time and extra costs.
In other words
Buying or renting a franking machine may seem like a good investment at first glance, but ultimately offers little real added value, at far too high a price. It’s much better to outsource your mail processing. No more hidden high costs and your mail processing taken care of, while your people stop losing valuable time. It allows them to focus fully on the core business of your company. With increased productivity as the icing on the cake.
Curious about how EasyPost will look after you?
Then we are more than happy to offer you a tailored approach for your mail processing. Taking it off your hands, without you having to buy or rent a franking machine and bear all the costs. In the end, you will easily save up to 20% on your postal costs with EasyPost.
