Send by email
Send real mail from your inbox.
Forward an email. Get a quote back. Reply to confirm. USPS delivers.
Opens your mail app with the recipient, return-address, and letter fields already started.
To: mail@sendpaperplane.com
Subject: Mail a letter
TO: Ada Lovelace
101 Spear St
San Francisco, CA 94105
Please find enclosed the signed lease renewal for the coming year.
USPS
Stripe securedHow sending from email works.
Step 01
Write it like an email
Start the body with a TO: block — name, then street, then city/state/zip — and a FROM: block for your own return address (USPS requires one on every piece). Or skip the blocks and write it in plain language: "mail this to my aunt, Ada Lovelace, 101 Spear St, San Francisco CA 94105."
Step 02
Pick exact or drafted
Under SEND EXACTLY:, paste the letter word for word. Under DRAFT FOR ME:, describe what you want it to say and paperplane drafts it from your description. Use whichever one matches how you already think about it.
Step 03
Send it
Address it to mail@sendpaperplane.com. A well-formed TO: block is parsed instantly, no model call. Plain prose gets a quick reading pass that asks a follow-up if anything is missing.
Step 04
Get a quote
paperplane replies to the thread with one all-in price for that exact letter. Nothing is printed, charged, or mailed yet.
Step 05
Reply to confirm
Reply "yes" to that specific quote. The recipient, letter, and price are bound to a single-use confirmation token, the same mechanism every surface uses — a reply can only ever confirm the quote it answers.
Step 06
It ships
paperplane prints it, seals it, and hands it to USPS, then emails back the tracking link.
The old way, and this one
Same USPS service, same proof of mailing; it comes from USPS either way. Everything around it is what changes.
| What | paperplane | At the counter |
|---|---|---|
| Printer, envelope | not needed | yours |
| PS Form 3800 | done for you | by hand |
| Address check | before you pay | Not available |
| Time | 2 min | 10 min + line |
| Proof of mailing | emailed, kept | a paper slip |
| Price, all in | $12.99 | fees + your costs |
›See the long version
The old way
Certified Mail, at the counter
- Write the letter, print it, and find an envelope that fits it.
- Address it by hand — including a return address, which USPS requires on every certified piece.
- Drive to the post office during opening hours and join the line.
- Fill in PS Form 3800 at the counter, peel it, and stick it on the envelope yourself.
- Decide at the window: the paper green card (PS Form 3811) or the electronic Return Receipt.
- Pay at the window, in cash or card, plus your own printing and envelope.
- Keep the stamped Form 3800 somewhere you will still have it in a year. It is your only proof of mailing.
Ten minutes at the counter with no line. Then do it again for the next recipient.
This way
Certified Mail, from where you are
- Paste the letter, or upload the PDF.The composer renders the exact pages that will print — fonts, pagination, everything.
- Type the two addresses.Both are checked against USPS data before you are asked to pay.
- Pay $12.99, or $14.99 with the electronic Return Receipt.We print it, seal it, and hand it to USPS the next business day. Tracking number by email.
About two minutes. No form, no line, nothing to lose.
Or hand it to an assistant: the same send runs over MCP, the API, or the CLI.
Who ends up sending letters here
Three jobs, one send flow. Everything below works today — the deeper guide is one tap away.
People who need it to hold up
The letter is the evidence: Certified Mail, a checked address, and a tracking page you can hand to a lawyer.
For the letter that has to hold up →People mailing for other people
Upload a CSV of clients or tenants; every row becomes its own individually addressed letter.
For mailing a list without mail-merge →Developers and AI agents
An MCP endpoint and REST API a human still approves the payment on, with a free sandbox.
For the agent and developer docs →
Illustrative scenarios · not customer reviews
What a send actually looks like
We haven't launched, so there is no one to quote yet. These are written examples of jobs the product does today: the people are made up, the capabilities are not.
A solo founder sending a contract notice
The agreement says notice by certified mail, return receipt requested — so that is exactly what gets picked, and the receipt records both the mailing and who signed for it. Certified envelopes never carry our mark, so the letter arrives looking like it came from the company that sent it.
A property manager mailing 40 tenants the same notice
A CSV export becomes 40 individually addressed First-Class letters in one pass — no mail-merge document, no campaign platform. Rows with a repaired ZIP or a missing city are flagged before anything prints, and each letter is tracked on its own afterwards.
A tenant chasing a security deposit
The demand goes Certified with an electronic Return Receipt, which is what makes the statutory clock provable rather than merely started. That receipt records who signed for it and when — the exact record a security-deposit dispute turns on.
An engineer wiring mail into an agent
The agent quotes the letter for free, then calls send and gets back a payment link for a human to approve — it cannot spend on its own. The same path runs end to end in the sandbox, free, with nothing printed.
One price. Postage included.
Printing, the envelope and USPS postage are in the number, no matter which surface you send from.
$1.99
First-Class letter
1 page, black and white, envelope and postage included
Extra pages $0.25 · Color +$0.50/page · Tracking +$0.99
Most sent
$12.99
Certified Mail
Proof of mailing and USPS tracking
The one landlords, courts and the IRS take seriously
$14.99
Certified + Return Receipt
Adds a signed electronic proof of delivery
Others charge $20 to $24 for the same piece
$24.99
Priority Mail
Flat-rate envelope, 1 to 3 day delivery
For the letter that cannot wait
Full detail on the pricing page.
Send it from your inbox.
Opens your mail app with the recipient, return-address, and letter fields already started.
Compose your letterCommon questions
Is email-to-send live today?
Yes. Forward an email with a recipient and letter text to our inbound address, get a quote, and reply to confirm and send.
Why does the template ask for my own address?
USPS requires a return address on every physical piece it carries. Without one, a letter that can't be delivered has nowhere to go back to. It's not optional, so the template asks for it up front instead of you finding out later.
Do I have to write the letter myself?
No. Write it under SEND EXACTLY: if you already have the words, or under DRAFT FOR ME: if you'd rather describe what you want said and let paperplane draft it. Either way you see the price before anything happens.
Will I get to see the letter before it's sent, or before I'm charged?
You get a price quote back by email before anything is printed, charged, or mailed — nothing goes further until you reply to confirm that specific quote. Today that reply is a price, not a visual preview of the printed page; a rendered draft to look at before confirming is on the roadmap, not shipped yet.
What if I forget the TO: block?
Write the email in your own words. paperplane reads the recipient out of the prose and asks a follow-up if it cannot find an address or the wording is ambiguous.
Can a script send this way?
Yes. The TO: block convention is deterministic and free — no model call — so anything that sends mail to mail@sendpaperplane.com in that exact shape gets instant, unambiguous handling every time.
How does a reply get matched to the right quote?
paperplane reads only what you actually wrote in a reply, above the quoted lines or the "On ... wrote:" header, and a confirming reply only ever completes the single quote it was sent for.
What does it cost?
One all-in price per letter: $1.99 First-Class, $12.99 Certified, $14.99 Certified with the electronic Return Receipt, $24.99 Priority. Extra pages are $0.25 each, color is $0.50 a page, tracking on First-Class is $0.99. No account, no plan.
Other ways to send
We support your method too — web, email, text or the CLI, one all-in price either way.