High Sort Options:

For sorting into area selections of up to 1,529 Directs or up to 86 Residues.

Low Sort Options:

Sorts mail items into area selections of up to 86 Residues. Gives you a better discount than High Sort but only mailings that meet the Royal Mail machine-readable specification are eligible.

• OCR: Requires clear zones and areas to be left on the envelope and there are some design and presentation constraints. Variations of this specification are available for letters and large letters. Reporting is not offered.
• Barcode: For letters only and with fewer design constraints than OCR. You are required to print a 4-state barcode on the item. This barcode is not the same as a 4-state Mailmark barcode. Reporting is not offered. This option is likely to be phased out at some point during 2017, in favour of Mailmark.
• Mailmark: For letters and large letters and offers batch level reporting. Requires a Mailmark barcode to be applied to each item, unique to each mail piece and various contains data encoded within it. There are two types of Mailmark barcode: "2D data matrix Mailmark barcode" and "4-state Mailmark barcode".

Minimum volumes:

• Letters - minimum 4,000
• Large Letters - minimum 1,000

Royal Mail User Guide:

For more detailed information please click here to access the user guides from the Royal Mail Technical website.

Pre-processing is FREE FOR ALL SERVICES:

When you upload a file for mailsorting, the system will run through a pre-processing procedure allowing you to see the actual Computer Planning Report, a listing of unmatched records as well as a sample of the fullly mailsorted address file containing the first 200 records. You will not be charged to download this information.

Only if you want access to the fully mailsorted address file, Line Listing Report, Bag label data and all other relevant files, will you be required to make a payment* of the stated processing fee. On completed payment* all files will be made available, along with a VAT invoice receipt. Payments are taken via Paypal which also supports Credit/Debit Card payments. (*Applies to non-account holders only).

Price per thousand vs. minimum fee:

Each service is priced separately. The fee is applied per file and is calculated either as a price per thousand records passed or a minimum amount. Whichever amount is highest is applied. Eg. a file containing 30,000 records processed for Mailsort (£0.50 per 1000, min £20.00) would amount to £15.00 or £20.00, resulting in a fee of £20.00 plus VAT.

Mailsort processing:

When processing for Mailsort, the fees include both the Computer Planning and Line Listing reports as well as all the data files you need to produce your address and bag labels.

Mailsort Barcode processing (with DPS):

When processing for Mailsort with DPS and barcodes, the fees include both the Computer Planning and Line Listing reports as well as all the data files you need to produce your address and bag labels.

NB! Please be aware that, although no official announcement has been made as yet, the Royal Mail are planning to phase this service out at some point during 2017 in favour of the Mailmark services.

Mailmark processing (with DPS):

When processing for Mailmark, the fees include generating barcode strings plus barcode images as an optional extra. Also included is eManifest handling and uploading to the Royal Mail eMHS portal.

If you are just testing Mailmark using a Mailmark Test account, please use the pre-processing service only (i.e. don't make a payment)

Tip: If you need to use Mailmark for an unsorted mail service, just choose one of the mailsort services anyway. It is of course irrelevant whether the data is sorted or not, but you will need to change the service name during mailmark barcode processing later on.

DPS Matching Notice:

When processing for Mailsort with Barcodes or Mailmark, the fees include generation of DPS codes and full barcode/mailmark strings which are included in the mailsorted address file. The DPS codes are automatically derived by matching against the Royal Mail PIF database which is updated every six months.

NB! Please be aware that the Royal Mail does not offer any accreditation tests for this service. We can therefore only provide it on a 'Best endeavours basis' and it cannot be regarded as 100% accurate at all times.

What is Mailsort Online about?

If you have more than 1000 letters to send in one go, the Royal Mail offers substantial discounts on the posting costs if you sort them yourself and put them in mail bags or trays before handing them over to the Royal Mail.

This is where we can help. Our website can do the sorting bit for you within a few minutes. As a "Pay As You Go" service it is a very cost-effective and hassle-free way to do mailsort.

For frequent users, we are happy to discuss setting up an annual account for you, or we can offer you a desktop version of the software if you prefer to do it that way.

How much does it cost?

Pre-processing is FREE FOR ALL SERVICES, which includes download of computer planning report and sample data, but download of full processed data sets is subject to a processing fee. Please see more information on our processing fees on the right (or click here).

Who can use the system?

In principle, anyone with a minimum of 1000 large letters or 4000 normal letters to send. In practice, it is mostly businesses, charities, organisations and authorities alike who would do this.

How long does it take?:

The turn-around time depends on the size of mailing and how busy the system is, but we are talking about seconds rather than minutes. Under normal circumstances an address file of say 50,000 records only takes about 10 to 15 seconds to process.

Files are placed in a queueing system and are processed on a "first come first serve" basis. We can usually process several files simultaneously and thereby keep waiting times to a minimum. If, however, you are experiencing a long delay (more than 10 minutes) please contact us to establish what the problem is.