UK Postal Services

• We are one of Royal Mail's largest partners so can help you maximise your discounts through their Mailsort options.

• We provide our own DownStream Access postal solution which can be cheaper than Royal Mail's equivalent postal service.

• We produce mail to the requirements of the many alternative postal operators that now operate in the UK, including TNT, Citipost, UK Mail, DHL, Secure Mail etc.

• We handle all types of mail including direct mail, letters, magazines, packets, and parcels.

• We handle mail that is being posted to residential and business addresses.

• If you also have international addresses to mail to we can mail those to.

• We provide the full range of UK mailing fulfilment services from direct mail production and polywrapping to mail order pick and pack.

• We undertake all of the mail preparation including sortation, bagging, tagging, strapping, paletisation, paperwork completion etc.

• Wherever possible we use technology to reduce costs and improve production speeds and quality.

• We continually evolve our UK postal solution to ensure our UK postal rates are low.

Royal Mail's Mailsort services provide some significant postage discounts for bulk mailings. In order to achieve maximum mailsort discounts, each record must be sorted into one of 1400 'selection areas'. Once printed and enclosed, each letter must then be sorted into bags destined for the corresponding selection area.

Sophisticated software and data processing capabilities are necessary to sort the records into mailsort order, to produce all the printed reports, produce the Royal Mail bag labels and to maintain sortation throughout the job.

BTB Mailflight have many years experience of handling Mailsort mailings and liaising with Royal Mail on any account or posting issues.

As well as being a licensed provider of mailsorting services we are licensed to print barcodes for CBC Mailsort mailings, and are able to print Mailsort OCR approved fonts. Find out more about our data processing services.

Choosing the correct Mailsort service

• Mailsort 1400 is suitable for mailings of 4000 or more. There are three Mailsort 1400 service levels.

• Mailsort 1 is ideal for the most time sensitive of mailings. This service offers next day delivery and a discount of up to 14.4% off standard first class post.

• Mailsort 2 is a 2 - 3 day service offering a discount of up to 13% off normal second class post.

• Mailsort 3 is by far the most economic method of posting. With discounts of up to 24.6% off normal second class post, this service is ideal for non-urgent mailings with a delivery time of up to 7 days.

• Mailsort services are aimed at bulk business mailings. Minimum volumes apply of 4000 or more letters or 1000 large letters/packets. Mailsort discounts achieved will vary from mailing to mailing.

The eventual Mailsorting discount will depend on the following factors:

1. The size of the mailing

The larger your mailing volume, the higher the discount you are likely to earn. A 4000 mailing using Mailsort 1400 class 3 would usually earn discount of around 15%. Whereas a mailing of 30,000 plus would be 22-24%.

2. The distribution of the mailing

If the 4000 mailing is all going to the same town, you are very likely to earn maximum mailsorting discounts on your mailing, whatever the size. Just a few letters to a wide range of sortation areas will earn a considerably lower discount.

3. The quality of your mailing data

If there are a lot of addresses with missing postcodes or mis-spelled address elements, these records will not be incuded in the mailsort sortation. This means that you will earn no discount on these records which will then severely effect your overall discount. It is essential that the quality of the data is assessed prior to Mailsort being used, with cleaning the the Royal Mail's own Postal Address File being a minimum requirement. BTB Mailflight provide the full range of data preparation services.

Mailsort 700 CBC

Mailsort 700 CBC works in much the same way as Mailsort 1400 with two added advantages. Using Mailsort 700 CBC will earn you an additional 2% discount. The second advantage is particularly useful to catalogue marketers. The Mailsort 700 CBC service offers a standard price right up to 100g. This can result in massive savings if your catalogue and inserts weigh more than 60g!

The following extra limitations apply if using Mailsort 700 CBC

• Items must not exceed 100g

• Items must be no larger than 240mm x 165mm.

• The minimum posting is 10,000 letters.

• Items must be able to bend (no pens or CDs can be mailed).

• Items must be less than 5mm thick.

• Items must not be polywrapped.

The Royal Mail website offers further information on Mailsort: Royal Mail's Mailsort services provide some significant postage discounts for bulk mailings. In order to achieve maximum mailsort discounts, each record must be sorted into one of 1400 'selection areas'. Once printed and enclosed, each letter must then be sorted into bags destined for the corresponding selection area.

Sophisticated software and data processing capabilities are necessary to sort the records into mailsort order, to produce all the printed reports, produce the Royal Mail bag labels and to maintain sortation throughout the job.

BTB Mailflight have many years experience of handling Mailsort mailings and liaising with Royal Mail on any account or posting issues.

As well as being a licensed provider of mailsorting services we are licensed to print barcodes for CBC Mailsort mailings, and are able to print Mailsort OCR approved fonts.

As one of Royal Mail's largest partners we can produce your mailing to Presstream standards, and we work with dozens of magazines.

What is Presstream?
If you’re a publisher of magazines, journals or newsletters, Presstream® offers great savings on the standard postal costs.

• Ideal for publishers

• Reliable drop dates

• Up to 2kg per item

• Unrivalled geographic coverage

• Free returns of undeliverable items

• Presstream® is ideal if you distribute a minimum of 1,000 Large Letters, A3 Packets or Packets at least twice a year. Your item must have at least one sixth editorial content.

How to apply with Royal Mail?
To request an application form please email profile.pricing@royalmail.com. Fill out the Presstream® application form and send it, together with a sample of the newspaper, journal or magazine, to the Presstream® Product team, who will confirm it is suitable and issue the publication with a periodical code, by email, to the account handler. This can then be used to set up a contract for a customer. The information provided on the application form constitutes Part C of the Presstream® Schedule. The Presstream® Schedule (including Presstream® Walksort®) should be read in conjunction with the Royal Mail General Terms and Conditions

If you are sending over 3,000 items, you may want to apply for a Profile Price. RM will need to analyse the mailing line listing, to ensure there are enough items going to the qualifying postcode areas. A second application form needs to be completed and forwarded along with your mailing list to profile.pricing@royalmail.com. The Profile Pricing application from can be requested from profile.pricing@royalmail.com.

What are the restrictions?
RM have to see the publication before we can provide access to the service.

The front cover should show the title, date and month or season it’s published and should be published and posted at least twice a year.

·You must be mailing at least 1,000 Large Letters, A3 Packets or Packets to qualify.

In addition:

• All items in a mailing must be the same shape, size and weight, unless you've a made special arrangement beforehand with us in writing.

• There is a maximum weight limit of 11kg per bag.

• You must have accurate Postcodes on at least 90% of the mailing.

• You can’t use this service to send catalogues, brochures, directories or direct mail

• At least one sixth of the Periodical must be editorial content.

A brief history lesson

Taking a look at how and why UK postage prices have changed over the years shows us that the cost of UK postal services and also international postal services have been dependant on more than just inflation and technological developments. At BTB Mailflight we believe that we can use the latest technology to keep postage rates low, and our connections with other agencies to ensure reliable and affordable international postal services. However, it wasn't always possible for everyone to have access to UK mailing services they could trust.

At first glance, you might not think that there would be a link between conflict and UK postage prices. But between 1775 and 1815 Britain was at war almost constantly, either with the United States or with France, and in a bid to help finance these wars, UK postage rates were increased by the governments involved. The higher postal rates remained in force for nearly a quarter of a century following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815.

Moves to reduce UK postage prices

Galvanised by the growing anger over the cost of postage rates, a tax reformer named Rowland Hill came up with a series of proposals which he claimed would reform UK postal services, making them more accessible for everyone, and not just the wealthy people of Britain. He published a pamphlet entititled 'Post Office Reform' which laid out proposals to make UK postal services more efficient and less costly. This pamphlet is now regarded by international postal services historians as a milestone in the development of the modern mailing services system.

Cutting postage prices today

We've come a long way since then, and BTB Mailflight use all of our expertise and the latest technology when it comes to delivering your mail efficiently with our international postal services and UK postal services. We pride ourselves on the reliability of our international and UK postal services, offering affordable postage rates without compromising on the quality of our mailing services.