Neighbourhood Mail in Canada: How It Works and What It Costs

Neighbourhood Mail puts your flyer, card, or catalogue into every mailbox on the Canada Post routes you choose, with no names, no addresses, and no mailing list. Canada Post handles the postage and delivery. Oppizi runs it as one of its Canadian channels and adds what the post office does not: targeted route selection, design and printing, campaign tracking, and end-to-end management in one platform that connects Neighbourhood Mail to your other channels.

This guide covers what Neighbourhood Mail is, what Oppizi adds, how targeting works, what Canada Post charges for postage (and why that is only part of the campaign cost), the rules your piece has to meet, and how it compares with Canada Post's Postal Code Targeting and Personalized Mail, and with Door-to-Door flyering.

What is Canada Post Neighbourhood Mail?

Canada Post Neighbourhood Mail is an unaddressed direct mail service that delivers your printed piece to every point of call on the routes you select. Canada Post describes it as a way to reach "every home and apartment in specific neighbourhoods or regions anywhere across Canada."

Because the piece carries no name or address, you buy coverage of an area rather than delivery to a list. That makes it a fit for jobs where geography defines the audience: a store opening, a new delivery zone, or a dated offer for everyone in a catchment.

Canada Post accepts a wide range of formats as Neighbourhood Mail, including flyers, cards, self-mailers, catalogues, community newspapers, and product samples. Its customer guide states that items must be deposited and paid for in Canada for delivery in Canada.

Canada Post also points to its own 2015 neuromarketing study, which found that direct mail drives 70% higher brand recall than digital media. Treat that as an attention finding from a postal operator, not a response rate.

What does Oppizi add to Neighbourhood Mail?

Canada Post delivers the mail. Oppizi turns it into a managed, measurable campaign. When you run Neighbourhood Mail with Oppizi, you get:

• Targeted routes: build coverage from postal codes and letter carrier walks on a map, and see household and business counts before you commit
• Design and printing: your piece is designed and printed to Canada Post's specifications, so it is accepted for delivery
• Tracking: QR codes, promo codes, and dedicated URLs connect each drop to the response it drives, reported in your Oppizi dashboard
• End-to-end management: plan, launch, and measure the campaign in Oppizi OS, next to your Addressed Direct Mail, flyering (Hand-to-Hand and Door-to-Door), and Inserts campaigns

The result is one channel that works with the rest of your marketing, rather than a postage purchase you manage on your own.

What happened to Canada Post Admail?

Neighbourhood Mail is the current name for Canada Post's unaddressed mail service, and it is the name to use when you plan, book, or search for it today. Admail is an older Canada Post name that still turns up in some guides, supplier pages, and search results.

Canada Post's current Smartmail Marketing customer guide, effective 23 March 2026, groups its marketing mail into three services: Personalized Mail for named addresses, Postal Code Targeting for selected postal codes, and Neighbourhood Mail for unaddressed coverage. If a supplier quotes you for "Admail", ask which of those three services they mean.

How does Neighbourhood Mail targeting work?

Neighbourhood Mail is targeted by geography: the smallest unit you can buy is a single letter carrier route, and you can scale up to many routes across the country. Canada Post's guide puts it this way: you can direct "the message to an area as small as a single postal route or to many postal routes across the country."

Within that geography, Canada Post lets you refine coverage in three ways:

• By area: Canada Post's interactive maps let you target cities, neighbourhoods, postal codes, and FSAs, with route maps shown online
• By address type: you can cover houses, apartments, businesses, farms, or any combination on a route
• By household attributes: Canada Post's targeting tools filter areas by building type, age, household income, and more, then return the routes that match

Two rules shape your real count. First, Canada Post respects its Consumers' Choice program, so households that have asked not to receive unaddressed material are left out of commercial mailings. Second, coverage is bought by route, so your quantity follows the number of points of call on the routes you pick, not a round number you set.

If you need a named household, a past customer, or a look-alike audience, that is a different service. Personalized Mail and Postal Code Targeting are the Canada Post options for that, and at Oppizi it is our Addressed Direct Mail channel.

How much does Neighbourhood Mail cost in Canada?

A Neighbourhood Mail campaign costs more than its postage. Canada Post's published postage starts at 18.7 cents CAD per piece for a standard item up to 50 g, but that covers postage and delivery only. It does not include design, printing, targeting, or tracking, so treat it as the bare minimum, not the full cost of a campaign. Oppizi quotes each Neighbourhood Mail campaign on its routes, volume, and format.

Postage only: the table below is Canada Post's own rate card for Neighbourhood Mail postage. Rates are per item, effective 23 March 2026, and checked on canadapost-postescanada.ca on 29 October 2026. They do not include design, printing, or the tracking and platform services that make up a full campaign.

Canada Post notes that these prices are subject to applicable taxes, fees, surcharges, and adjustments, and that qualifying customers may access lower prices by signing an agreement. Again, these are postage rates only. Design, printing, targeting, and tracking are added on top to make up the full campaign cost.

What moves your total:

• Routes and volume: the number of points of call on the routes you choose sets your quantity
• Size and weight: oversize pieces and anything over 50 g step up a postage band, and pieces over 50 g need Canada Post's pre-authorization
• Format and print run: a card costs less to print than a multi-page catalogue
• Options: a specified delivery start date or transportation option adds a per-item charge

With Oppizi, postage, design, printing, targeting, and tracking sit inside one quoted price for your Neighbourhood Mail campaign, with no list or data fees, because there is no mailing list to source. To get your number, talk to our team or request a quick quote. For a wider look at what direct mail costs, see our guide to direct mail cost in Canada.

What are the Neighbourhood Mail size, weight, and volume rules?

Canada Post's main Neighbourhood Mail rules cover minimum volume, size, weight, and delivery timing, and they are set out in its Smartmail Marketing customer guide, effective 23 March 2026.

Canada Post states that its delivery standards are estimates and are not guaranteed, so build a buffer into any dated offer. Non-letter carrier routes, such as rural routes, follow different size and weight limits listed in the same guide.

How does Neighbourhood Mail compare with Postal Code Targeting and Personalized Mail?

Neighbourhood Mail is the widest of Canada Post's three Smartmail Marketing options, with the lowest postage per piece, because it carries no address and reaches every mailbox on the letter carrier routes you choose. Postal Code Targeting narrows the reach to single postal codes and lets you remove your existing customers, while Personalized Mail goes to one specific address, with or without a name, from your own list or a list rented from Canada Post. Canada Post positions Neighbourhood Mail as best for awareness and acquisition, Postal Code Targeting as best for acquisition, and Personalized Mail as best for retention and engagement.

Rates are Canada Post postage only, from Canada Post's business price sheets effective 23 March 2026. They exclude design, printing, and tracking, and are subject to Canada Post's applicable rebates, discounts, fees, surcharges, adjustments, and taxes.

Pick Neighbourhood Mail when you want every home and business in an area to see your offer, such as a store opening. Pick Postal Code Targeting when you want new customers in pockets that resemble your current ones, without paying to mail people who already buy from you. Pick Personalized Mail when you know exactly who you want to reach and want to tailor the offer to them. Postal Code Targeting is a Canada Post option that Oppizi can advise on when you request a quote. At Oppizi, Personalized Mail runs as our Addressed Direct Mail channel.

How is Neighbourhood Mail different from door-to-door flyering?

Neighbourhood Mail is delivered by Canada Post carriers on their regular routes. Door-to-Door is a flyering channel: Oppizi Brand Ambassadors hand-deliver your flyers to homes on planned missions along the residential streets you choose. Both put print into homes without a mailing list. The difference is who delivers, how finely you target, and how delivery is confirmed.

Pick Neighbourhood Mail when you want every mailbox on a set of routes, including apartment buildings and business addresses, or when your footprint spans several provinces. Pick Door-to-Door flyering when you want to choose individual streets, see which routes were completed and when, and add door hangers to the mix. For what flyering costs, see our guide to flyer campaign costs in Canada.

How do you measure a Neighbourhood Mail campaign?

You measure a Neighbourhood Mail campaign by giving every piece a trackable response path and comparing results by route or FSA. Because the mail carries no name, the tracking has to live on the piece itself.

• QR codes: each scan links a physical piece to a visit or sign-up
• Unique promo codes: a code per route group or FSA ties redemptions back to geography
• Dedicated URLs: a campaign landing page separates mail traffic from your other channels
• Area comparison: compare sales or enquiries in covered FSAs with similar areas you did not mail

Set your tracking and comparison areas before you print, not after the drop. For reference, door drops average a 0.3% response rate per the JICMAIL Response Rate Tracker, which is UK-measured, so read it as a reference point rather than a Canadian benchmark. Your offer, creative, and repeat coverage move results more than the channel does.

When is Neighbourhood Mail the right channel?

Neighbourhood Mail is the right channel when everyone in an area is your audience and you do not hold, or do not want to use, a customer list.

• Retail and grocery: reach every household in a store's catchment with a weekly offer or a new-location announcement
• QSR and delivery: cover every address inside a delivery zone when you launch in a new FSA
• Franchise and local services: give each franchisee coverage of their own territory, route by route
• Multi-province launches: put the same message into neighbourhoods across several provinces at once

If you are comparing providers for flyer and letterbox coverage, our roundup of flyer distributors in Canada covers that question.

How does Oppizi run Neighbourhood Mail in Canada?

Oppizi runs Neighbourhood Mail end to end in Oppizi OS: you build coverage from postal codes and letter carrier walks on a map, see household and business counts before you commit, and follow distribution and response in one dashboard. Design, printing, targeting, and tracking sit inside one quoted price, and Canada Post delivers.

Oppizi has distributed more than 14 million pieces across Canada and tracked more than 740,000 conversions in Canada, with campaigns in over 12 countries. Neighbourhood Mail can sit in the same plan as Addressed Direct Mail, flyering (Hand-to-Hand and Door-to-Door), and Inserts, so a coverage drop and a customer mailing run side by side.

Talk to our team or request a quick quote to plan Neighbourhood Mail across the routes that matter to you.