No more licking and sticking envelopes and stamps. With today’s electronic mailing machines, you don’t even have to stand in line at the post office to get your meter reset. Electronic postage meters consist of a base machine through which envelopes are guided for stamping, which can be rented, leased, or bought from a mailing equipment manufacturer. The machine also has a meter, which must be leased from a U.S. Postal Service-approved mailing equipment manufacturer such as Pitney Bowes; federal regulations prohibit the ownership of the actual meter, as that is strictly controlled by the U.S. Postal Service. The faster and more automated the machine, and the more features it incorporates, the more it costs to rent, lease or own. The primary difference between bases is how letters are fed through the machines. The least costly are the manual models that require you to feed letters, one at a time, through a roller. More expen sive models offer semiautomatic or fully automated letter feeding.
