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Postage Meters Buyer's Guide
The mailing machine base is essentially an envelope handler, designed to transport your mail through the meter. Mailing machine bases are often rented along with the meter. Rental prices for a complete solution start around a hundred dollars per month, but advanced options can push the price into the thousands of dollars per month.
The four main parts of a base include the feeder, sealer, stacker, and tape dispenser.
Feeder
A feeder guides envelopes through the meter and affixes the correct postage based on the current postage rates. Although you can get a low-end meter without a feeder, feeding a large mailing by hand is quite tedious.
You have the choice of a small automatic feeder, which lets you feed in a handful of envelopes at a time or a medium volume automatic feeder where a stack of 50 to 200 envelopes can be fed at a time speeding the process immensely for mailers.
An automatic mixed mail feeder is also available which can save time in sorting and feeding the mail. Mixed Mail Feeding can handle mail of various sizes from postcards to 10" X 13" flats and up to 3/4" thick in a single stream.
Sealer
A sealer moistens the envelope flap activating the glue and seals it from tip to tip. More advanced systems can seal mail while feeding both pre-sealed and unsealed envelopes without jamming the machine and tearing up the pre-sealed envelopes.
Stacker
After mail is metered, it must be cleared from the machine. This requires a stacker. Low-end stackers are no more than a catch tray placed at the edge of the meter and designed to hold metered pieces of mail.
Power stackers can stack more envelopes by using a conveyor mechanism to move the stamped pieces away from the meter's edge. These power stackers can be added to the medium and high volume systems.
Tape dispenser
When sending larger packages or odd-shaped mail, it is not always possible to print the indicia directly onto the mailing piece. In these cases, strips of adhesive paper, called tape, are fed through the meter and affixed to the package.
Tape dispensers are available in two varieties: pre-cut dispensers that use single pieces of tape and dispensers that use a roll of tape (either gummed or adhesive rolls are available). Bases equipped to use roll tape usually rent for more than bases using pre-cut tape, but can result in lower operating costs over time. |
