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Stamps.com, Microsoft Partner on Postage

Here's a virtual alternative to waiting in Post Office lines.

By Alexandra Krasne, PCWorld   

Now, you can forgo the waiting in line for stamps at the U.S. Post Office, and even Microsoft is getting into the act with an adjunct tool to its Office programs.

Microsoft is pairing with Stamps.com, one of two companies approved by the Postal Service to offer a service selling stamps online and distributing a digital barcode that indicates mail processing information and postal payment. Competitor E-Stamp launched its service in August, while Stamps.com will make its online postage available in September.

You'll be able to print out your Web-purchased stamps with a regular laser or ink jet printer using Microsoft Office 97 or 2000, Word 97 or 2000, or Outlook 97 or 2000, according to Taylor Collyer, business development manager for Microsoft Office.

When you address your envelope using Office, Word, or Outlook, you just click on the Stamps.com icon to put postage on it, Collyer says.

"Microsoft's Office site is an excellent place for Stamps.com," says Jeffrey Green, co-founder and vice president of Stamps.com. "The Microsoft site is a central point on the Web."

Buying stamps online isn't cheaper than going to the post office, but it sure beats waiting in line.

You choose between a business service plan and personal service plan when you sign up for the Stamps.com service.

Under the business service plan, as a trade-off for not having to go to the post office, you pay a 10 percent "convenience fee" on the postage you use. If you use less than $40 worth of postage for that month, Stamps.com still assesses a minimum fee of $3.99.

For the personal service plan, you pay about $1.99 per month or $19.99 for 12 months. But if you use more than $25 worth of postage per month, Stamps.com adds a 15-percent fee for any postage that exceeds $25. Stamps.com says it will never charge you convenience fees of more than $19.99 for any month regardless of how much postage you use.

Through Stamps.com's site, you can also "buy" a digital scale, which will run about $50 to $75. But you can get a $5 physical scale that will do the same job, according to Green.

If you buy the digital scale, you just plug it into your PC's serial port and it runs the weight of the package into your software so you can print postage.

Some fees will sneak up on you with the service. If you decide to mail a package with a priority label, you must drop it off at the post office or add $8.25 for each pick-up stop.

If you're still not sure if the payoff's worth it, a pricing tool on the site can help you calculate how cost-effective the service really is for your postage needs.

"We think Internet postage is a cool thing, and we wanted to use the Internet to make our customers more productive" Collyer says. "And Word or Outlook are the most logical software to use a stamp service."

You still have to do one thing yourself, though.

"The only thing our software can't do is drop your letter in the post box for you," Collyer says.