Most people keep a book of stamps in a drawer somewhere at home because you'll never know when you might need them! The trouble is that you often loose track of just how many stamps you have left, and its all too easy to run out of stamps at any given point in time, especially when you have a truckload of bills to send out. When you want to send by post, it's very annoying to find out that you dont have any stamps left! Especially if the post office is closed!



Thanks to the internet it is possible to get around this oversight, and Im not talking about email. The United States Postal Service has come up with a system which allows people to print their own postage stamps in the comfort of their own home!

This is the perfect solution for those people that have hectic lives!

You can buy two types of postage stamps online, regular online postage stamps and photo stamps. We will consider both of these within this article.

Regular and Online Photo Stamps

Whenever you go to the post office to buy a stamp you are buying a boring, standard postage stamp. These are normally red in color, there is no option to customize the stamp before you purchase it other than the options they may give you. This has become popular on the internet as well. You can just order a regular 1st class stamp for example and then print it off using your own printer.

You can have much more fun with your stamps these days, when you buy them online than when you just go to the post office to buy them. You can decorate, preview, and print your stamps all from the comfort of your own home. You are able to upload any photo (within reason) and then use this as part of your postage stamp as well. How convienant is that?

International Photo Stamps

These stamps aren't just restricted to domestic use, they can be used to send you mail internationally. They are perfect to use for many different special occasions, such as weddings, births, anniversaries and even birthdays! Photo stamps are addictive! Once youve started using them youll never want to go back to using regular postage stamps, they're just so boring in comparison! And lets face it, they weren't that exciting before we had photo stamps!

How Can I Print Photo Stamps?

Companies that wish to sell online stamps must apply to the USPS for permission. These authorized vendors will generally provide a piece of software to users which can be used to generate stamps, this software is invaluable to customize your stamps.

You dont need any additional graphics editing software because most of these pieces of software allow editing and cropping of your images so that theyre suitable for your postage stamp.

There is normally a minimum order of one sheet of stamps, this sheet contains 20 stamps of whatever denomination you choose. You should buy the denomination of stamp that you will use the most of when sending post, for most people this will be 37 cents first class stamp.

Online postage stamps have made it so much easier to send snail mail, its very useful for businesses as they are able to keep a log of their use, plus they can buy postage as and when they need it rather than having to shell out so much for regular postage stamps and honestly....its just so much more convienant.