How to Buy Postage for PWEs Without the Stamp Run

Every TCG seller who mails plain white envelopes knows the routine: you're halfway through packing a big night of orders and realize you're down to six stamps. Or a heavier order needs a second ounce and you're not sure whether one stamp covers it, so you stick on two to be safe. Stamps work, but they're one more thing to stock, count and run out of.

There are a few ways to put postage on a PWE. Here's what each one actually costs in 2026, what it's good at, and where it falls short.

Your options at a glance

Prices as of October 2026. USPS rates from the July 12, 2026 price change.

Forever stamps

The default for most sellers, and nothing wrong with it. A Forever stamp is 82¢ since the July 2026 increase and covers a 1-oz letter at any future price. Each extra ounce is another 29¢. The catch is keeping the right stamps on hand, and keeping track of what you spent, order by order, when it's time to do your books.

Online postage subscriptions

Services like Stamps.com let you print postage on labels or straight onto envelopes, at USPS's discounted metered rate. They make sense for high-volume mailers, but you pay a monthly subscription whether you mail 20 envelopes or 2,000, and they're separate from your TCGplayer orders.

Package label apps

Pirate Ship and similar apps are great for packages, but they don't sell letter postage at all. Pirate Ship's own help center says it only offers labels for parcel services and suggests buying stamps for letters. For a PWE, they're not an option.

Buying postage in TCGHaulTracker Early access

If you already upload your TCGplayer packing slips to TCGHaulTracker, your orders and buyer addresses are already there, so postage is a few clicks from the job:

1. Upload your orders as usual. Postage is bought for orders already in TCGHaulTracker.
2. Click "✉️ Postage" on the job to do the whole job at once, or "✉️ Buy postage" on a single order.
3. Enter each piece's real weight and size. Weigh it with everything inside on a postal scale. You see the total before you buy.
4. Print and mail. Stick the label on the envelope in place of a stamp and address, and drop it in the mail.

Two label sizes

• 4×6 label: one label with the buyer's address, the postage and its own tracking barcode. No envelope printing, no stamp. Your tracking and buyer tracking links keep working exactly as before.
• 2×1.5 stamp: postage only. It goes in the stamp corner of an envelope you've printed from TCGHaulTracker, and tracking comes from the barcode on that envelope. Stamps are bought one order at a time, so each stamp ends up on the right envelope.

Illustrations with made-up details, not to scale. Your actual labels come from USPS and may look a little different.

What it costs

USPS's commercial letter rate, currently 78¢ for the first ounce and 29¢ for each additional ounce, plus a flat 7¢ label fee per envelope. Card processing is included, and you see the total before you buy. There's nothing to prepay: postage is charged to your card when it reaches your billing threshold (starting at $10), or added to your next invoice.

Why use it

• No more stamp runs. Postage is there whenever you're packing, at 11 PM or on a Sunday.
• The right postage on every envelope. You enter the real weight and pay for exactly that, so heavier and rigid envelopes go out correctly paid instead of guessed.
• One label and done. The 4×6 label has the buyer's address, the postage and the tracking barcode on it, so there's no envelope to print and no stamp to stick on. Peel, stick, mail.
• A record of every envelope. Each label is tied to the order it was bought for. Settings → Postage lists every label with its order, postage, fee and billing status, so you know exactly what you paid to ship each order, with nothing to remember or reconstruct later.

Here's what that looks like. This is the Postage activity list in Settings → Postage, with made-up orders:

Unbilled postage is waiting for your next charge. The 1-oz letter at $1.27 was marked rigid, so it includes the 49¢ nonmachinable surcharge. Package labels you buy are listed here too.

Rigid envelopes

If an envelope is too stiff to bend, tick Rigid when you buy, and USPS's 49¢ nonmachinable surcharge is included in the price, so your buyer never gets a postage-due notice. Most PWEs, including one with a single toploader, don't need it. Our guide to the nonmachinable surcharge explains exactly what counts.

Bought one you won't use?

Cancel a 4×6 label within 3 days of buying it, as long as it hasn't been mailed. 2×1.5 stamps can't be cancelled once bought, so check the weight first.

Who can use it

Letter postage is available on every paid plan once USPS has scanned 25 of your orders; Settings → Postage shows your progress. It's an early-access feature, so details may still change. The full walkthrough is in Getting Started → Letter postage.

Which should you use?

• A handful of orders a week, no label printer: Forever stamps are hard to beat.
• Already printing package labels on a thermal printer: letter postage in TCGHaulTracker uses the same printer and the same labels, and keeps postage with the order it belongs to.
• Very high volume and happy to pay a monthly fee: an online postage subscription can make sense, separate from your order tracking.