First class mail is commingled into a new mailing each day. With the mix of permit, metered, and stamped mail, the comminglers can't easily hold processed mail overnight when they feel like it. Sure they could re-date the metered mail via inkjet endorsing, but sooner or later, that comes to light with questions to follow. Every customer wants their mail picked up as late as possible but they want the mail to drop the same day. It is not uncommon for a commingler to take mail beyond their first pass cut-off time leaving the operations staff with the task of trying to figure out how to get it out that day. It is important to understand your commingler's capacity when requesting late pick-up times.

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A typical commingler will have two static sort schemes (Static = pre-determined destinations that do not change daily). The first is normally a local sort covering AADC and 5 digit zip codes in the immediate geographical area. The 2nd would be a scheme that covers the consistent national zip codes (usually AADC but can be five digit). Once all of the mail has been passed through the static schemes, the mailing is analyzed and a second pass is done on the remaining portion of the mailing. Although this whole process sounds pretty basic, it changes dramatically from commingler to commingler. The most efficient comminglers are the operations that have the most creative process in place to achieve the finest sort possible with the smallest handles per piece. An efficiently sorted First Class mailing is about 1.6 - 1.8 handles per piece. This means 1.5mm - 1.8mm pieces need to be run on the sorters to produce a one million piece mailing. The less handles per piece a commingler has, the less potential for a USPS issue.

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It is possible for a commingler to finalize a mailing to a 100% 5-digit sort but in most cases, this is not achievable without actually costing more than the discount itself. The ideal profit point balances around 92-93% of the potential qualified 5-digit pieces. For example, running 10,000 pieces a 2nd time to get the discount on 200 pieces of mail does not make financial sense. Since mailing make-up and zip density tend to change drastically from mailing to mailing, predicting the qualifying zips and sorting them out on the first pass is not always possible.

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First Class mailings are commonly smaller than the Marketing Mail mailings because they are submitted to the USPS daily. Knowing this, you should decide if the commingler's mailing is right for your mail. You might want to ask what their customer base is like. They don't need to provide specifics, just a general make-up which they should have no problem revealing. If the commingler gets a large portion of their mail from local businesses such as banks, colleges, or the city/county, then their mailing will fall more into a local category. If your mailing is national, this will not help your postage or delivery speed much. If their mail is mostly from letter shops and printers and your mail is national, then that would be a good fit. Obviously this scenario works in the reverse as well.