Pricing
One letter. One payment.
Printing, the envelope, USPS postage and the certified fee are all in the price. There is nothing to join, nothing to top up and nothing added at the end.
From $12.97 · $15.97 with Electronic Return Receipt · $24.21 with the Evidence Pack · $50.10 as a Deadline Notice
First letter: $9.95 for one or two pages by Certified Mail with tracking, without the return receipt. One per account; every letter after it is at the prices above.
One letter. One payment. No subscription, no membership, no minimum, no trip to the Post Office.
Mail my letterSee what you get back
Every figure on this page is read from the same pricing the checkout uses, at the moment you load the page. The exact total for your own letter is worked out from your own document and shown on the review page before you pay.
Where $12.97 goes
| USPS postage and the certified fee the Postal Service's own charge, the same at any Post Office counter | $6.37 |
|---|---|
| Everything else printing, the envelope, the certified form, handing it to USPS, card processing, the record you keep, and Piloxa | $6.60 |
| One-page letter, Certified Mail with USPS tracking | $12.97 |
$6.37 of every certified letter is the Postal Service's fee, and nobody can take it out: not Piloxa, not any other website, not you at the counter. The part you are actually choosing is $6.60. Doing it yourself, that part is paper, ink, an envelope, filling in the certified form, and the drive: eight miles there and back is $5.80 at the IRS rate, before the forty-five minutes. What Piloxa charges above the counter fee is $0.80 more than the drive alone, and nobody leaves the house. The full trip arithmetic is below.
With the electronic return receipt the Postal Service's share is $9.28 and the rest is $6.69, which is $0.89 more than the same drive.
What one letter costs, by length
Price depends on how many pages are printed, and on which of the three options in the table you pick. Certified Mail gives you a USPS tracking number. The electronic return receipt adds the record of who signed for the envelope. The Evidence Pack is the same mailing again, with the Certificate of Mailing described below. The Deadline Notice, below the table, is the Evidence Pack plus a second copy by First-Class Mail; its price is in its own section.
| Printed pages | Certified Mail USPS tracking | Certified Mail + Electronic Return Receipt tracking and the signature record | Evidence Pack the same, plus the Certificate of Mailing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 page | $12.97 | $15.97 | $24.21 |
| 2 pages | $13.07 | $16.07 | $24.31 |
| 3 pages | $13.18 | $16.17 | $24.41 |
| 4 pages | $13.58 | $16.58 | $24.81 |
| 5 pages | $13.68 | $16.68 | $24.92 |
| 6 pages | $13.78 | $16.78 | $25.02 |
| 8 pages | $13.99 | $16.99 | $25.23 |
| 10 pages | $14.20 | $17.19 | $25.43 |
Not sure how many pages your letter runs to? Paste it into the free readiness check and it will tell you, with the exact total, before you sign in. Both sides of a sheet count as two pages. The step between three pages and four is bigger than the others because USPS charges a heavier postage rate once the envelope passes one ounce. A letter can run to 10 pages. Letters of 6 to 10 pages are printed on both sides of the paper. The review page always shows the exact figure before you pay.
The Evidence Pack, $24.21 for a one-page letter
Most certified letters are sent for one reason: so that later, when it matters, you can prove you sent it. The Evidence Pack is that proof, assembled for you instead of by you.
The mailing itself is identical — same printer, same postage, same USPS handling, same electronic return receipt. What is different is what you get back:
- A Certificate of Mailing. One document that names the letter by its SHA-256 fingerprint, gives the recipient address as it was mailed, quotes the exact words you authorized it with and when, names the company that printed and deposited it, and sets out the USPS article number, every scan USPS has reported and the signature collected on delivery.
- Every fact carries its source, and a fact nobody has reported is printed as unknown rather than assumed. That is the difference between a record that survives being attacked and one that does not.
- The document itself, byte for byte, in the same file, so the fingerprint on the certificate can be checked against it by anyone.
- 7 years of retention instead of one, re-issued on request at no further charge within that period.
The Certificate of Mailing is issued by Piloxa from Piloxa's own records. It is not issued by the United States Postal Service, it is not a USPS Form 3800, 3811 or 3817, it is not a notarial act and it is not legal advice. See a sample record.
The Deadline Notice, $50.10 for a one-page letter
A certified letter nobody signs for sits at the Post Office for a couple of weeks and is then sent back to you. If the recipient refuses it, it comes back sooner. For a notice with a deadline, that is how a right gets lost. The Deadline Notice closes that gap.
- Everything in the Evidence Pack: Certified Mail with the electronic return receipt, the Certificate of Mailing and 7 years of retention.
- A second copy the same day by First-Class Mail. The same document, in its own envelope. A plain First-Class letter is not held for a signature and is not sent back when the certified copy is refused or left unclaimed. Lawyers send notices "by certified and first-class mail" for exactly this reason.
- A warning if the certified copy stalls. If USPS reports it unclaimed, refused or returned, or has not delivered it within 10 days, we email you with the dates on record, so you learn it while there is still time to act.
It is worth it when missing or losing a notice costs far more than the letter: a preliminary or pre-lien notice, a notice of default or to cure, a termination notice, a proof of loss. For a letter about a few hundred dollars, the Electronic Return Receipt is enough.
Whether a statute or a contract counts a First-Class copy as notice depends on its own wording, and this is not legal advice. The copy adds a second, independent proof of sending; it does not replace the certified letter.
The other way to send it: a trip to the Post Office
A typical trip: about $24.85. A first letter from Piloxa: $9.95, and nobody leaves the house.
For most people the real alternative is not another website. It is getting in the car. That trip is usually described as free, because the only number anyone writes down is the postage. Here is the same letter — one page, Certified Mail with the electronic return receipt — counted properly.
| USPS fees at the counter | $9.28 |
|---|---|
| Driving there and back, 8 miles | $5.80 |
| Before one minute of your time | $15.08 |
The counter fee is 82¢ postage, the $5.55 certified fee and $2.91 for the electronic return receipt. The driving is eight miles at 72.5¢ a mile, the IRS standard rate for 2026, which covers fuel, insurance, tires and wear rather than the gas alone. Your paper, your ink and the envelope are not counted at all.
The same letter from Piloxa is $15.97, with nobody leaving the house. Before a single minute of your time has been valued, the trip is already within a couple of dollars of that — and the minutes are where the comparison stops being close.
And then the time
An hour is worth something even at the lowest wage the law allows. By way of example, the table below counts the time at California's 2026 minimum wage of $16.90 an hour, for a plain certified letter without the return receipt. The drive is 72.5¢ a mile, and every total includes the $6.37 USPS counter fee. A typical trip is forty-five minutes door to door: twenty minutes driving, five parking and walking in and out, twenty in the line and at the counter.
| Trip | Drive | Time | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short 4 mi, 25 min | $2.90 | $7.04 | $16.31 |
| Typical 8 mi, 45 min | $5.80 | $12.68 | $24.85 |
| Long 16 mi, 75 min | $11.60 | $21.13 | $39.10 |
A first letter from Piloxa is $9.95, and nobody leaves the house. Even the short trip costs more. Your own wage changes the answer: at the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour the typical trip is still $17.61. Rather than publish an average nobody can check, the arithmetic is here: change the miles, the minutes or the rate and the answer changes with it.
These are assumptions, not measurements. Some Post Offices have no line at all and some take forty minutes; if yours is two blocks away and quiet, the trip is cheap and this page is not trying to talk you out of it. Without the return receipt the same comparison is $6.37 at the counter plus $5.80 of driving, $12.17, against $12.97 from Piloxa. USPS fees are the schedule effective 12 July 2026; the mileage rate is the IRS business standard rate for 2026, published in Notice 2026-10. Both change, so check them before relying on them. Against the other online services, where Piloxa is not the cheapest, see what certified mail online really costs.
What is in the price
- Printing — your document, laid out and printed by a licensed print-and-mail partner.
- The envelope — stuffed, sealed and addressed, with the certified label attached.
- USPS postage and the certified fee — bought and paid for, at the current USPS rate.
- The certified service you chose — Certified Mail, with the electronic return receipt added when you pick it.
- The mailing record — the exact document with its fingerprint, the addresses, what you authorized and paid, and the printing partner’s own acceptance of the job, kept together and downloadable as one file.
- Tracking and signature as they are reported — every scan and receipt the printing partner passes back, recorded with its source, and a plain “no record yet” where none has been reported. What that looks like.
What you will not be charged
There is no monthly membership, no annual plan, no prepaid balance to top up, no per-account fee, no minimum order and no charge for opening an account. You pay once, per letter, and only after you have seen the exact pages, the recipient and the total on the review page. Nothing is charged until you authorize it there.
Some certified mail services advertise a lower headline price that needs a paid membership before you can use it, or quote a base rate and add the return receipt at checkout. Piloxa quotes one all-in number per service, and it is the number the card is charged. What certified mail online really costs sets out what each service charges for one letter, Piloxa included — and Piloxa is not the cheapest.
Refunds
If the letter has not yet been handed to the printer, the charge is reversed in full. Once it is printed and posted, the postage and printing are spent and cannot be refunded, but a failure on our side is ours to put right. The mailing and refund policy says exactly where that line falls.
Common questions
Is the price on this page the price I pay?
Yes, for a letter of that many pages sent to a US address. These figures are produced by the same pricing that quotes your own letter at checkout, read at the moment this page loaded. Your own total is worked out from your actual document and shown in full on the review page, before you pay.
Do I have to subscribe?
No. There is no subscription, no membership and no minimum. One letter is a complete transaction.
Can I send to an address outside the United States?
Not today. USPS Certified Mail is a domestic service; Piloxa mails to US addresses only.
What if the address turns out to be wrong?
The recipient address is checked against USPS records before you pay, and the result is shown to you. If USPS cannot match it you can correct it there and then. A letter that is later returned to sender is recorded as returned, with the date and the address used — which is often useful evidence in its own right.
Mail my letter How to send one
Sending from an assistant instead? How to connect your assistant — it prepares the letter at these same prices; you review, pay and authorize here.
Status, November 2026: Live mailing is open for letters to any US address. You see the exact letter, the recipient and the total before you pay, and nothing is printed or mailed until you authorize it. Questions: support@piloxa.com.