How it works
The one ad that can't be skipped.
Four steps, no agency, no design software, no call with a salesperson. From landing on the homepage to approving a printed ad in about fifteen minutes.
Curious where the 61% / 25% numbers come from? See the sourced proof →
01
Pick a zone
Every LocalAd drop ships to a defined neighborhood (a carrier route, a ZIP, or a cluster of both), usually 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, or 30,000 homes. You pick where you want to show up. If you run a bakery in SE Portland you don't need to pay to reach Beaverton; you buy only the zones you actually serve. Browse open zones to see what's available near you right now.
02
Grab your category
This is the part nobody else offers. Each LocalAd postcard carries a handful of slots, and each slot is category-exclusive. If you're the plumber on the card, no other plumber shares the card. If you're the dentist, same. Your neighbors see exactly one business per trade per mailbox. You're the obvious choice, not the cheapest headline in a list. First come, first served, one per zone per drop.
03
AI-design your ad
Upload your logo (or not), tell us what you do and what you want to offer, and our system generates a print-ready design in about 20 seconds. You preview it live, swap colors, edit copy, regenerate until you love it. The first five generations are free, and you never pay for an ad you don't approve. No Canva. No $2,000 designer retainer. No revision rounds that drag for weeks.
04
Ship, scan, track
Once a zone fills, we print on premium cardstock and hand it to USPS to deliver to every home in the zone. Each ad carries a unique QR code that resolves through localad.io/q/<code>to your destination URL. Every scan (timestamp, device class, approximate location, unique visitors) lands in your dashboard the second it happens. You'll know within a week what your card is doing.
The exclusivity rule
Why we only let one business per category on each card.
A classic shared-mail envelope stuffs 30 coupons into a polybag. Three plumbers, two HVAC companies, four pizza places. The reader skims, gets fatigued, throws the whole thing out. Nobody wins.
LocalAd flips that. A single premium postcard, a small handful of slots, and a hard rule: one business per trade per drop. You're not competing for the reader's attention against your direct rival. You're the only choice in your category on that card, period.
That's why we call them category-exclusive postcards. The moat is the exclusivity, and once you've claimed your neighborhood, the next competitor has to wait for the next drop cycle.
vs the alternatives
Same channel. Three completely different products.
Direct mail is a category, not a product. The way EDDM, Valpak, and PostcardMania sell it has almost nothing in common with how we sell it. Here's the short version, and we tell you when one of them is the better call for your business.
vs EDDM
EDDM is the USPS's DIY portal. Postage runs about 21 to 25 cents per piece before you've printed anything. You design the card, you print it, you box it up to the right specs, you walk it to the post office. Cheapest unit cost in the category, but you're the agency, the designer, the printer, and the logistics. No QR tracking unless you add it yourself.
Pick EDDM if you already have a designer, a printer relationship, and the patience for USPS's bundling rules. Pick LocalAd if you'd rather upload a logo and approve a card.
vs Valpak
Valpak is the blue envelope. It stuffs roughly 30 coupons in a polybag and mails the bag to a carrier route. Cheap per impression at scale. The reader skims, gets coupon fatigue, and recycles the bag. Your plumbing ad lives next to two other plumbing ads, both running 20% off.
Pick Valpak if your offer is a deep discount and you're competing on price alone. Pick LocalAd if you want to be the only business in your trade on the card.
vs PostcardMania
PostcardMania is a full-service printer with an agency layer on top. Print starts around 7 cents per piece. Then there's a campaign management fee, $200 to $2,000 depending on what they sell you. Then a minimum job size. Then a sales call before you see a real number. They also push you toward bundling PPC at $500 a month.
Pick PostcardMania if you want a human to project-manage the whole thing and don't mind the agency markup. Pick LocalAd if you want the price on a pricing page and zero sales calls.
Want the full side-by-side with all of them? See the comparisons.
Pricing
Pricing scales with the zone.
Front-of-card slots run $599–$2,699, back-of-card slots run $349–$1,349, depending on how many homes the drop covers. No subscriptions, no retainers. You pay per drop.
See full pricing →Free tool
See the numbers before you commit.
Model your expected scans, leads, and revenue from a single drop, with a live comparison against Google Ads, Meta, and Yelp.
Quick questions.
How long from purchase to mailbox?
Most drops ship 2–4 weeks from the day a zone fills. You'll see the exact drop date in checkout before you pay.
Can I see the design before it prints?
Yes. You preview and approve every variant. Nothing goes to the press until you sign off.
What if I don't like any of the AI designs?
Generate more. The first five are free. After that, top up with a bundle: 20 credits for $15 or 50 credits for $25. You never pay for an ad you don't approve.
More on the full FAQ page.
How we stack up
Wondering how this compares to EDDM, Valpak, or doing it yourself?
Side-by-side breakdowns with real pricing. Honest about when we're better and when we're not.
Open zones
See which zones are still open.
One business per category per zone. Once your trade claims it, it's gone until the next drop.
Browse open zones →