Intelliprint

Intelliprint vs Royal Mail Business Mail

Royal Mail Business Mail alternative: send letters without the hardware

Royal Mail Business Mail discounts your postage if you print, sort, and post it yourself. Intelliprint does all three for one per-item price.

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Business Mail isn't a print-and-post service — it's a discounted postage rate on a Royal Mail business account, for mail you've already printed, enveloped, and (for the best rates) presorted yourself. It rewards high, regular, well-prepared volumes with genuinely lower per-item postage. Intelliprint charges more per item at the postage line, but that price already includes printing, enveloping, and handling, with no minimum volume and no account or barcode compliance to manage. Which is cheaper overall depends entirely on what you'd otherwise pay for your own printing and labour.

Choose Intelliprint when

  • You want printing, enveloping, and postage handled as one per-item price, not just a discount on postage
  • You send under a few hundred items and don't meet Business Mail's volume minimums
  • You'd rather not manage an Online Business Account, presorting, or barcode/postage-impression compliance yourself
  • You want a single invoice instead of separate print, labour, and postage costs to reconcile

Choose royal mail business mail when

  • You already print and sort high volumes in-house and just need a cheaper postage rate — Business Mail's presorted/high-sort discounts can undercut an all-inclusive per-item price at scale
  • You're sending very large presorted volumes (4,000+) where the postage-only rate is lower than any all-in per-item price

Feature by feature

Intelliprint vs Royal Mail Business Mail

What's included

Printing, enveloping & personalisation

Intelliprint
Included — upload data, we print, personalise, and post
Royal Mail Business Mail
Not included — Business Mail is a postage discount; you print, envelope, and sort it yourselfSource

Minimum volume

Minimum posting volume to qualify

Intelliprint
None
Royal Mail Business Mail
250 items minimum for machine-readable unsorted letters; 1,000–4,000 for presorted/Advertising Mail tiersSource

Submission method

How you get mail into the system

Intelliprint
Upload via API, dashboard, print driver, or Hotfolders — no physical handling
Royal Mail Business Mail
You physically prepare, sort, and present mail via an Online Business Account sales orderSource

Cost model

What the price actually covers

Intelliprint
One per-item price covers print, envelope, and postage — from 84p
Royal Mail Business Mail
Postage-only: prices from 32p per item unsorted, down to 25p at high-sort volumesPrinting, envelopes, staff time, and account administration are all separate costs on top of the postage rate.Source

Account requirements

Account & infrastructure needed to get started

Intelliprint
Just a login — no business mailing account required
Royal Mail Business Mail
Requires an Online Business Account plus correct barcode/postage-impression setupNo formal mail accreditation process is required, but sales-order administration is on you.Source

Speed

Dispatch turnaround

Intelliprint
Same-day dispatch for items submitted before 3pm, fully outsourced
Royal Mail Business Mail
Entirely dependent on your own print, sort, and presentation process

Competitor information last fact-checked 9 July 2026.

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