Co-mingle.
Automation rates on as few as 200 pieces.

Commingling pools mail from multiple senders into a single sortation run that qualifies for USPS automation discounts. The discounts require minimum volumes (200 pieces for letters and flats); a small drop on its own does not qualify and pays single-piece rates. By riding in a pool with thousands of other pieces, that same small drop captures automation rates — and often drop-ship discounts on top — that would be inaccessible alone. The economics for small mailers transform.

As few as 200 pieces. The 200-piece threshold is the USPS minimum for automation rates per piece type, and commingle qualifies the small drop by riding it in a larger pool. Practically, even smaller drops can pool — the platform routes them based on which pools have capacity and which entry-point destinations align. The economics matter most for drops in the 200-2,000-piece range, where the per-piece postage savings versus single-piece rates add up to meaningful program economics.

Yes. Every piece carries its own IMb that ties it back to its originating campaign. Informed Visibility scan events stream to the campaign that owns the piece, not to the pool. Reporting, attribution, and downstream automation triggers run per campaign as if the drop had stood alone. The pooling is operational — it happens at sortation — not logical. The team running the small drop sees their pieces and their data only.

Commingle is most common on USPS Marketing Mail letters and flats — the dominant mail class for commercial direct mail. First-Class Mail has narrower commingle eligibility because of priority handling requirements. The platform handles the routing per mail class automatically and only pools pieces eligible for the relevant pool.

They compose. The commingle pool sorts to USPS automation tiers, then the pool drop-ships to entry facilities (NDC, SCF, or DDU) based on destination concentration. A small drop joining a commingle pool can ride the same destination entry discounts a national drop would qualify for — because the pool is large enough to justify the freight to specific entry points. Small drops, deepest postage tier USPS offers.

For drops above ~5,000 pieces, the originating drop typically qualifies for automation rates on its own without pooling — the commingle infrastructure adds no economic value at that volume. The platform routes drops above the threshold through standard presort and only commingles drops where the pool delivers measurable savings. The decision runs automatically per drop, not as a team configuration.

Commingle pools run on tight cycles — typically same-day or next-business-day from when the drop enters the pool. The delay versus standalone presort is usually 24 hours or less. For most campaigns, that delay is invisible against the multi-day USPS delivery window. For tightly-timed campaigns, the platform reports the actual pool entry window so the team can plan around it.