In today’s environment, organizations that rely on high-volume mailings are facing mounting cost pressures. Rising postage rates, undeliverable addresses, and duplicate records all erode margins — especially for companies that send hundreds of thousands of letters each month. For collection agencies, where compliance, accuracy, and timeliness are non-negotiable, these challenges can quickly add up to significant operational strain.

This case study highlights how a large Canadian collection agency partnered with AIIM to reduce postage costs by more than 12% while streamlining processes and maintaining regulatory compliance. The result: over $110,000 in annual savings and a scalable model for future growth.

The Challenge: Rising Costs in a High-Volume Mailstream

The agency was sending more than 140,000 letters every month. With postage as their single largest communications expense, leadership knew there had to be opportunities to save. But identifying those opportunities wasn’t easy.

The biggest challenges included:

• High, recurring postage costs with little visibility into optimization opportunities

• Large volumes of undeliverable or duplicate mail, driving unnecessary print and handling expenses

• Limited in-house tools for data cleansing, suppression, and presort optimization

• Pressure to cut costs while maintaining timely delivery and compliance with industry regulations

The agency needed a solution that could deliver immediate savings without disrupting existing workflows.

The Solution: AIIM’s Print Cost Management Program (PCMP)

AIIM introduced the agency to its Print Cost Management Program (PCMP) — a data-driven service that integrates with Canada Post to automatically reduce waste and optimize postage spend.

The program was designed to be seamless, requiring no additional manual work from the client’s team. Core elements included:

• Data Cleansing & Suppression – Identifying undeliverable, duplicate, or non-essential mail before production

• Canada Post Optimization – Leveraging presort, address accuracy, and mailstream optimization to maximize postal discounts

• Automated Processing – Integrating suppression into monthly workflows without disrupting production schedules

• Scalable Model – Handling consistent 140,000-piece monthly volumes, with flexibility to scale up or down as needed

By combining address hygiene, automation, and postal expertise, AIIM created a turnkey system that delivered measurable results from the very first mailing cycle.

The Results: Immediate and Sustainable Savings

The outcomes were significant and sustainable:

• 12% Average Monthly Savings – Consistent postage reductions across all mailings

• $110,000+ Annual Savings – A six-figure ROI that directly improved the agency’s operating margins

• Waste Reduction – Fewer duplicate and undeliverable pieces, lowering both print and handling costs

• Operational Efficiency – Fully automated, requiring no additional steps from the client’s internal team

• Scalability for Growth – A flexible solution that could expand with the agency’s needs

For the agency, these savings weren’t just a one-time benefit — they represented a repeatable and reliable strategy to control one of their biggest cost drivers.

Why It Matters

For organizations that send high-volume transactional or compliance mail, postage optimization is one of the fastest ways to achieve measurable ROI. Even small percentage improvements compound quickly when scaled across tens of thousands of pieces each month.

By leveraging AIIM’s PCMP, this collection agency turned what was once an uncontrollable expense into a managed, data-driven process. The program not only reduced costs but also improved overall communication accuracy — a critical factor in an industry where compliance and trust are essential.

Conclusion

Mail remains a vital channel for regulated industries, from financial services and insurance to utilities and collections. But without the right tools, postage costs can drain budgets and reduce efficiency.

This case study demonstrates how AIIM’s Print Cost Management Program helps organizations cut costs, reduce waste, and gain more value from every communication. For this Canadian collection agency, the impact was clear: over $110,000 in annual savings, immediate ROI, and a streamlined workflow that supports long-term scalability.

If your organization manages large-scale mailings and is looking to control costs while improving compliance and efficiency, AIIM can help.