Discussion Forums - Questions about SwapaCD

I have a 3.3-oz rigid envelope, 6" square, less than 1/4" thick. SwapACD wants me to pay $2.66 for media mail.

When I go to the USPS site to price it out, I get $1.34 for first class.

Why would this be?

Thanks.

For some reason swapacd thinks the maximum first class letter weight is 3 oz, but in reality the max is 3.5. (Or possibly 4 oz?) Unfortunately, if you end up with something that weighs over 3 oz you're out of luck in terms of swapacd postage.

On the plus side, swapacd postage gives you free tracking if you go with the media mail rate.

EDIT: Technically, swapacd thinks 3.0 requires media mail as well, but if you set your postage weight to 2.9 you'll get the first class letter printout, which explicitly says "3 oz" as the weight.

Yeah, I just looked it up, and it's 3.5. The problem is that even if I'm using stamps, the label gets printed as "Media Mail" rather than first class. I guess I can just fudge the weight and get it to generate a first class label...

3.0 gave me the first class price...

However, the label (for either weight) says "FRAGILE" instead of "NONMACHINABLE." Puzzling.

Yeah, that was it. The "fragile" notice bugs me, as I imagine postal workers view that notice as a challenge. Whereas "Non-Machinable" seems less like fighting words and more like a clerical paperwork term.

I always enter 2.9 on my swapacd postage weight to get the soothing "Non-Machinable" notice on my 2-3 oz packages. And because I use medium weight chipboard as padding -- which is quite heavy -- ALL my CD mailers weigh over 2 ozs.

I did have one CD whose front insert was unusually heavy, making the total mailer I typically send weigh between 3.1 and 3.2 oz according to my scale. I ended up sending that out in a bubble mailer instead. I figured if I'm paying 2.66 I may as well go full bubble mailer like with a digipak or double CD, y'know? I probably could have just printed out a 3 oz label and crossed my fingers, but I didn't want to risk it.