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I am starting an LLC in January 2012, and I'm evaluating various ways of obtaining a postal mailing address that is not my home address. I have to take into consideration the cost of such a service, the distance from my home, and the hours during which I can go to retrieve accumulated mail. Could others give me an idea of how much legitimate postal mail I'll likely have to deal with, over the course of a year?

My company is going to develop software; I'm hoping to hire others (probably temporary help/contractors/vendors at first); I'll have various online hosted services; and I'll have a business banking account. I don't know where I'll work. I'll likely work at home somewhat, but I'm also considering co-working locations and hacker spaces (some of which offer mail service for paying members). Assume that customers will not be provided with a postal mail address for the company. So the mailing address will essentially be strictly for company operations paperwork.

I see some similarity in what I'm asking and this previous question titled "LLC and address"; I have chosen to focus my question on mail volume.

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why are you not using your home address? – TimJ♦ Dec 12 '11 at 15:47
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@tim, maybe he doesn't want his home address to be public. I wouldn't. – Kekito Dec 12 '11 at 16:02
@Jeff. I asked WHY. I now he doesn't want to - but why? What does he fear? – TimJ♦ Dec 12 '11 at 16:33
I don't want my home address to be public; I want to separate work and home as much as possible; having a permanent business address seems like a good idea which gives me the flexibility to change both my home address and work address if my situation changes for any reason. – bneely Dec 12 '11 at 19:22

3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

It is an interesting question but I think it would be a difficult one to answer precisely.

Let's see some macro statistics I found for the EU market to get some average numbers:

Postal service statistics - universal service providers

The analysis of postal traffic in relation to the population data shows that the highest number of letter-post items sent per capita in 2009 was recorded in Finland (375) and Luxembourg (373), followed by the Netherlands and Sweden, each with more than 200 items distributed per capita. In contrast, eleven EU Member States distributed less than 100 letter-post items per capita, with five of them – Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania - sending below 50.

My personal interpretation would be that the amount of postal mail per year decreases and it depends on the maturity and intensity of the economy.

I would expect no more then 200-375 letter-post items delivered per person hired in a company per year.

I would be glad to see some other comments and answers too.

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Statistics about mail to the general population of a country do not say much, if anything, about how much mail a startup will get. From my experience, it will not be proportional to the number of employees. – Kekito Dec 12 '11 at 14:08
Jeff, please provide some more accurate, real business life numbers as your answer. I would like to learn something from this as well. – Refineo Dec 12 '11 at 14:16
It would be better if someone could share their own real-world experience. – bneely Dec 13 '11 at 21:21
up vote 1 down vote

Good idea. I have an LLC that does software, and I get a few mailings per year from government (for state filings, including tax filings) and you'll get a few from the bank.

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And about a metric f**kton of junk from Dell. – Ryan Jan 13 '12 at 12:36
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I believe I have resolved this. A friend has a business with extra office space, and I'll likely be using his location for postal mail and quite possibly co-located workspace.

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