How to price virtual mailbox services

Three tiers cover almost every customer who walks in. A basic box for someone who mostly needs an address, a standard box for someone who wants mail scanned regularly, and a business box for a company with several people receiving mail. More tiers than that slows the sale down without adding revenue.

These are typical ranges, not recommendations. Stores in high-rent cities sit at the top of each range; stores that compete with a franchise counter across the street often sit in the middle. Offer an annual option at a discount of a month or two. It reduces churn and gives you cash up front.

Scanning is where the labor is. Opening an envelope, flattening the pages, feeding them through the scanner, checking the result, and uploading it takes minutes of staff time per request, and a twelve-page contract takes longer than a one-page notice. Pricing has to reflect that.

The structure most stores land on is included pages per month on the plan, then a per-page overage. Some add a small per-request fee on top, so a customer who asks for twenty one-page scans pays for twenty trips to the scanner, not twenty pages. Typical overage is $0.25 to $1 per page.

• Included pages give the customer a number they understand and keep most months at the plan price with nothing extra to explain.
• Per-page overage means the heaviest users pay for the labor they consume, instead of the light users subsidizing them.
• A per-request component pays for the fixed work of every scan, which is the same whether the envelope holds one page or ten.
• A flat unlimited scan plan works until the first customer who receives daily mail and wants all of it scanned. After that it loses money every month.

Innbocks prices scans exactly this way: per request, with included pages on the plan and per-page overage beyond them. You set every figure, and the customer sees the fee before they confirm.

A forward has two costs: the postage or carrier rate, which you pay out, and the staff time to pack the item, print the label, and get it into the outbound pile. Price them separately so customers can see that postage is a pass-through and the handling fee is yours.

Typical handling is $3 to $10 per forward. Stores that consolidate several pieces of mail into one envelope on a schedule can charge at the lower end, because one handling fee covers several items. Single-package forwards with a carrier label sit at the higher end.

Remember the termination duty: after a customer leaves, you remail their mail with new postage for at least 6 months. Your forwarding fee schedule applies to that mail too, so a former customer pays the same postage plus handling as an active one.

A setup fee covers the time to verify two IDs, review the Form 1583, and open the box. Typical is $0 to $50, and many stores waive it for annual plans or for their first customers. If the customer uses remote online notarization, the notary fee is usually passed through at cost as a separate line.

Deposits are optional. A refundable key deposit for a physical box or a small forwarding deposit for customers who forward often are both common. Keep the deposit and its refund rule in writing on the plan page.

Storage is the fee stores forget. Packages sit on a shelf until the customer decides what to do with them, and without a fee they sit for weeks. A free window of a few days followed by $1 to $3 per day is typical, and it changes behavior more than it generates revenue. Storage fees are what keep the back room usable.

A personal box has one addressee. A business box carries the company name plus the people who receive mail for it, and under DMM 508.1.8 each of those individuals files their own Form 1583 with two IDs. That is more records to keep, more IDs to track for expiration, and more mail volume, and the price should reflect it.

• Price the business tier at the top of your range and include a set number of named individuals, with a small monthly add-on for each additional person.
• Include the largest page allowance, because business mail is heavier and more of it needs scanning.
• Add priority handling or same-day scan as the feature that separates the tier, since businesses value speed over price.

Innbocks supports business accounts natively: one box can carry a business plus named individuals, each with their own Form 1583, ID records, and expiration tracking.

Here is a store with 100 boxes spread across the three tiers at the middle of each typical range. Action revenue is a rough illustration, not a forecast; your customer mix will move it.

The plan revenue is the number to build on. It arrives on the first of the month whether or not any mail does, and it grows one box at a time. Action revenue is the upside, and it is also where the labor is, so watch scan overage and handling fees to make sure they cover staff time.

• Underpricing scans. A scan is minutes of labor. If the overage is set below the cost of that labor, every heavy user loses you money and the plan price cannot make it up.
• Unlimited scans. It sounds generous and it sells, right up until the customer who receives mail daily. Include a page allowance instead and let the overage pay for the exceptions.
• Not charging storage. Without a daily fee after a free window, packages sit. The fee is less about revenue and more about getting shelves back.
• No annual option. Customers who prepay a year rarely leave mid-year, and the discount costs you less than a churned customer does.