UPS Mail Innovations, UPS Ground, and UPS Air

What is the difference between UPS Mail Innovations, UPS Ground, and UPS Air?

UPS MAIL INNOVATIONS

UPS Mail Innovations specializes in mailing packages and small parcels under 1 lb for significantly lower UPS mailing rates, especially for businesses that push high volumes of small packages every day and need an affordable rate. 

UPS Mail Innovations provides domestic and international mail services to customers that need to send high volumes of mail. UPS accomplishes this by partnering with USPS: UPS will pick up mail in bulk from the customer and drop off the mail at the nearest USPS processing center. From there, the USPS center processes the mail and gives it to its couriers for last-mile delivery. This is how UPS mailing rates are affordable for Mail Innovations services.

UPS Mail Innovations is a great way to move envelopes and small parcels, especially if you have to ship high volumes every day. They have competitive pricing and provide all the tools to manage everything from pick-up to last-mile delivery. The EasyPost rating API will return the UPS rate quote that is their best pricing.

Mail Innovations supports:

• Flat Mail: 1 ounce – 15.99 ounces. Typically used for booklets, magazines, etc.
• Bound Printed Material: 1 lb. – 15 lbs. Typically used for books, catalogs, etc.
• Less than 1 lb. Parcels: 1 ounce – 15.99 ounces. Typically used for lightweight oddly-shaped items, like CDs, clothing, poster tubes, etc.
• Media Mail: 1 lb. – 70 lbs. Must not exceed 108” in total dimensions (Length * twice width * twice height) and is restricted to certain types of packages such as binders, films, medical binders.

UPS AIR AND UPS GROUND

UPS Ground and UPS Air could handle the same high volume workload and provide similar shipping speeds, but this will return UPS mailing rates that cost you quite a lot more in postage fees for those smaller weight parcels. UPS offsets their mail and small parcel delivery costs by partnering with USPS, thus building a low-cost UPS rate mail solution for customers that move large amounts of small envelopes and parcels.

Want to get started with UPS? Check out our UPS guide.