What are Business Reply Envelopes?

Printed Business Reply Envelopes, which in the UK are also called 'Prepaid Envelopes' by the Royal Mail, are used to encourage customers to reply to you, or your company, without your customer having to pay the Royal Mail's postage cost at their end. You'll pay it for them plus you only pay for the replies you receive.

Business Reply envelopes are the professional way to do it, are ideal for business communications and can be printed by Trade Printing UK (after you first apply for a licence from Royal Mail – see below) with your company's details and company logo, using Royal Mail's layout guidelines (we'll use our superb, professional templates to create that for you!).

Trade Printing UK are one of the leading business envelope printing companies (with Business Reply Envelopes printed FROM £45 plus FREE DELIVERY) specialising within the UK's envelope printer industry, especially for these types of Royal Mail response services printed envelopes.

I want printed Business Reply Envelopes now - how do I get them in the UK?

Firstly you'll need to apply to the Royal Mail to purchase either a 'Business Reply Standard' or 'Business Reply Plus' alpha licence number (e.g. AAAA-BBBB-CCCC). You only pay for the actual post that is sent back to you rather than buying all the postage costs up-front. You pay Royal Mail on a MONTHLY basis, so Business Reply envelopes really mean you're only paying for what you receive back from your customers.

How to CONTACT the Royal Mail Business Reply and Response Services licensing team via their Barnsley office

This is how to CONTACT the Royal Mail Business Reply Licensing team via their Barnsley office Phone: 08457 950950 - then Press '2', then hold, then Press '3', then Press '2' - this will get you speaking to an actual person! (Lines are open 8am to 5pm - Monday to Friday.), or E-mail the Royal Mail Business Reply licensing team in Barnsley with this E-mail address: HERE

How much does a Business Reply Licence cost from the Royal Mail?

There is an annual licence fee that has to be paid up front to Royal Mail which is currently £97 + VAT per year, with optional additional £54 + VAT for extra licence for your additional branch addresses.

This is a grouped licence, so you get a bundled Freepost Standard / Business Reply Standard licence or Freepost Plus / Business Reply Plus licence together. Just pick either the 'Standard' or 'Plus' licence bundle.

How much are Business Reply Envelope postage costs after that?

After you have your licence from the Royal Mail, you then pay a price per single response [i.e. you pay Royal Mail directly - on a monthly account basis - for EACH returned pre-paid envelope a customer sends you back] for all items up to 100g (e.g. under the PLUS licences for DL + C5 "Letter" sizes - 1st Class: 48p; 2nd Class: 35p; under the STANDARD licences for DL + C5 "Letter" sizes - 1st Class: 54p; 2nd Class: 41p; "Large Letter"such as C4 and above are more expensive [up to 100gsm weight] e.g. C4 1st class - 74p; 2nd Class: 62p because they are hand sorted by humans) and of course this depends whether you use a Royal Mail 1st Class or 2nd Class Indicia mark on your custom prepaid envelopes.

How much do Business Reply Envelopes cost to Print?

Once you have that licence number, you can place your order with Trade Printing UK to actually print the DL envelopes (we also do C5 and C4 size variants) professionally for you.

Don't forget you can include your company logo for free (your address block, the 1st/2nd class indicia in the top right, and the Licence number must ALWAYS BE PRINTED IN BLACK INK so that is the minimum colour you can print your logo as well. If you want to add 4/0 CMYK Full Colour, then that'll cost a bit more).

We would then draw up your professional artwork with our own professional templates designed specifically for Royal Mail's products, then send you back a high-resolution PDF which you subsequently send on to the Royal Mail response services account team in Barnsley [they handle the whole of the UK] to approve. There's always a bit of hassle with that bit, but we can guide you through this.

What's the DIFFERENCE between Business REPLY STANDARD envelopes and Business REPLY PLUS?

Business Reply Standard envelopes are the less popular of the two however they give the most scope to UK businesses for envelope size [i.e. it allows for C4 envelopes unlike Business Reply Plus which doesn't] and 1st or 2nd Class services etc. We would assume that is because Royal Mail can't offer the 6p discount with the Plus licence because it would be classed in their new 'Large Letter' category that was introduced in April 2013 and can't afford to give you the discount in that price band.

Do Business Reply Envelopes need a stamp?

Not in the traditional sense, but they do use the Freepost Envelopes' 1st Class or 2nd Class Indicia in the top right of the artwork. See image above. If you're a charity it's best NOT to ask your patrons donating to you to stick a stamp over the indicia as it will cost your charity extra money by a fine from the Royal Mail, which in the end will cost you extra money.

What's the difference between a BUSINESS REPLY envelope over a FREEPOST Envelope?

Good question! The straight answer is, there is NO difference! NONE whatsover. THEY DO THE SAME THING! Seriously. It's all down to personal choice.

Freepost is seen as LESS formal [yet exhibits the same features of a Business Reply licence number with a 1st or 2nd class indicia, and are delivered in the same time] and more consumer-focused.

Best answer is that Freepost is aimed at Business-to-Consumer. Business Reply is aimed at Business-to-Business

Business Reply is seen as a MORE formal and professional look. However, again, there is NO difference in the actual service or what it actually does. We wish they'd just standardise everything into one product, but there you go.

Royal Mail's own on-line Artwork Generator is massively flawed. Use our Templates instead!

When you apply for your Business Reply licence you will see that the Royal Mail have their own Artwork Generator on their website, however this has contained a few very serious programming flaws for a long time (which we've pointed out to them on numerous occasions to no avail and to date their web developers have NOT fixed yet) in that the artwork produced is low-resolution (plus a colour problem) and NOT suitable for commercial printing. This is why we've developed our own professional artwork Envelope templates to give perfect control of your envelope's professional artwork to Royal Mail guidelines and standards.

We've produced thousands of these successfully for our clients over the years.

The "Royal Mail Artwork Generator" gives you the option to add your company logo to the professional artwork but the problem there is that also doesn't handle any other graphic formats but GIF (which is ridiculous as that's only intended for website use), Jpeg, or Tiff (in a very limited way). Files have to be limited to 500k as well.

The Royal Mail Artwork Generator takes no account whatsoever for high-end professional formats such as vector EPS files, nor does it understand the difference between Grayscale, RGB, CMYK, Pantone, spot colour inks or any other important printing industry colour gamuts; a massive fundamental flaw that Royal Mail has made no attempt to fix, nor understand the needs of commercial printing companies. It has frustrated us and others in the industry for a long time and basically, it's a complete mess and we're not backward about saying it!

Thus, Trade Printing UK will NOT accept any "Royal Mail Artwork Generator" PDF files as they are wholly unacceptable for commercial UK envelope printing. We will create your professional envelope artwork for you.

Already got a licence? You'll need the NEW 2014 "Response Services Barcode" added to your existing artwork.

As of April 2014, the Royal Mail introduced an additional font-based barcode to the licence plate area in the top left of envelopes, which must be added to your additional artwork (if you've got Business Reply envelopes before). You can supply it by entering the 12-digit licence numbering into their Response Services Artwork Generator and pick the "Response Services Barcode" only, remembering that DL and C5 are classed as "Letter" size, and C5 is classed as "Large Letter" size. Then choose either "EPS vector' or "PDF" format from the final radio button choice.

TradePrintingUK can add that for you. Just phone 028 9084 1234 or E-mail us today and we can update your existing Business Reply envelope artwork for you.

What type of flap can I use? Self-Seal or Peel & Seal?

From an over-printing perspective, we normally produce your business reply envelopes via our now standard, premium 120gsm peel & seal product ranges (the highest quality in the UK print industr for this sector!) for quantities ranging from 250 - 5000; over this and you have the option to use our 90gsm self-seal envelope product on either the 'Business Reply Standard' or 'Business Reply Plus' licence formats.

SUMMARY CHECKLIST to buy printed Business Reply Envelopes:

Firstly, Apply to Royal Mail for one of their 'Business Reply Standard' or 'Business Reply Plus' prepaid Licence Numbers (can take a week or more sometimes!). Once Royal Mail have sent the new alpha Licence Number and your Address Block back to you, then come back to us and choose...

• Which Size of Royal Mail Business Reply Envelope do you require?
  DL, C5 or C4?
• Is it Royal Mail's 'Business Reply Standard' or 'Business Reply Plus' service you have the licence for?
• "Plus" can only be used up to 100g weight.
• Do you want 1st Class or 2nd Class indicia printed on your custom-printed Business Reply Envelope?
• We will then create your envelope's professional PDF artwork, and E-mail you a PDF proof that you send back to their response services team in Barnsley
• Once approved by them (we'll talk you through that potential nightmare via E-mail), you E-mail us back their sign-off. They're usually only interested in the content e.g. that your address block and licence number are correct though.
• Then phone us on 028 9084 1234 with your payment details (we accept Credit or Debit Cards / BACS via Proforma Invoice/ Paypal if you wish).
• We will then proceed to production. Turnaround for any of our Business Reply envelope products is normally just 5-6 working days after that. We ship FREE via Parcelforce.

To CONTACT the Royal Mail Business Reply team in their Barnsley office on Telephone or E-mail

To summarise once again, you can CONTACT the Royal Mail Business Reply Licensing team in their Barnsley office Phone: 08457 950950 - then Press '2', then hold, then Press '3', then Press '2' - this will get you speaking to an actual person! (Lines are open 8am to 5pm - Monday to Friday.), or E-mail the Royal Mail Business Reply licensing team in Barnsley with this E-mail address: HERE

What does it cost to print Business Reply Envelopes?