Send by CLI
Send real mail from your terminal.
Quote, send, and track real mail from your terminal or scripts. No account, no API key.
A thin wrapper over the same public REST API the website uses.
$ paperplane send letter.pdf \ --to "Ada Lovelace, 101 Spear St, San Francisco, CA 94105" \ --from "Alex Rivera, 421 8th Ave, New York, NY 10199"
quoting… $0.99 (First-Class, 1 page)confirm? [y/N] y✓ ord_8k2d created · first_class · $0.99tracking pprln.co/t/8fq2
USPSHow sending by CLI works.
Quote, send, and track real mail from your terminal or scripts. No account, no API key.
- Step 01
paperplane quote
Pass --to and --text; get back one all-in price and a confirmation token. Free, creates nothing.
- Step 02
paperplane send
Pass a PDF, --to and --from; USPS requires a return address. Add --sandbox to run the whole pipeline free and mail nothing.
- Step 03
paperplane status
Check an order by ID from the terminal, or add --json to any command to pipe the exact API response into jq.
Certified Mail, minus the trip.
Same USPS service, same proof of mailing. What changes is the printer, the envelope, the form and the line.
| What | paperplane | At the counter |
|---|---|---|
| Printer, envelope | not needed | yours |
| PS Form 3800 | done for you | by hand |
| Address check | before you pay | Not available |
| Time | 2 min | 10 min + line |
| Proof of mailing | emailed, kept | a paper slip |
| Price, all in | $12.99 | fees + your costs |
›See the long version
Certified Mail, at the counter
- Write the letter, print it, and find an envelope that fits it.
- Address it by hand — including a return address, which USPS requires on every certified piece.
- Drive to the post office during opening hours and join the line.
- Fill in PS Form 3800 at the counter, peel it, and stick it on the envelope yourself.
- Decide at the window: the paper green card (PS Form 3811) or the electronic Return Receipt.
- Pay at the window, in cash or card, plus your own printing and envelope.
- Keep the stamped Form 3800 somewhere you will still have it in a year. It is your only proof of mailing.
Ten minutes at the counter with no line. Then do it again for the next recipient.
Certified Mail, from where you are
- Paste the letter, or upload the PDF.The composer renders the exact pages that will print — fonts, pagination, everything.
- Type the two addresses.Both are checked against USPS data before you are asked to pay.
- Pay $12.99, or $14.99 with the electronic Return Receipt.We print it, seal it, and hand it to USPS the next business day. Tracking number by email.
About two minutes. No form, no line, no slip to keep.
Or hand it to an assistant: the same send runs over MCP, the API, or the CLI.
$14.99, or the trip.
- paperplane
- $14.99 all in, with the electronic Return Receipt, sent from wherever you are and handed to USPS the next business day.
- At the counter
- The same USPS fees, plus your printer, an envelope, the drive, the line and PS Form 3800 by hand.
The fees go to USPS either way. The $14.99 buys not making the trip.
Built for three kinds of sender.
Three jobs, one send flow, one all-in price. Each links to the guide that goes deeper.
People who need it to hold up
The letter is the evidence: Certified Mail, a checked address, and a tracking page you can hand to a lawyer.
For the letter that has to hold up →People mailing for other people
Upload a CSV of clients or tenants; every row becomes its own individually addressed letter.
For mailing a list without mail-merge →Developers and AI agents
An MCP endpoint and REST API with a free sandbox. A person approves every payment link.
For the agent and developer docs →
Four sends, start to finish.
We haven't launched, so there is no one to quote yet. These are written examples of jobs the product does today: the people are made up, the capabilities are not.
A solo founder sending a contract notice
The agreement says notice by certified mail, return receipt requested — so that is exactly what gets picked, and the receipt records both the mailing and who signed for it. Certified envelopes never carry our mark, so the letter arrives looking like it came from the company that sent it.
A property manager mailing 40 tenants the same notice
A CSV export becomes 40 individually addressed First-Class letters in one pass — no mail-merge document, no campaign platform. Rows with a repaired ZIP or a missing city are flagged before anything prints, and each letter is tracked on its own afterwards.
A tenant chasing a security deposit
The demand goes Certified with an electronic Return Receipt, which is what makes the statutory clock provable rather than merely started. That receipt records who signed for it and when — the exact record a security-deposit dispute turns on.
An engineer wiring mail into an agent
The agent quotes the letter for free, then calls send and gets back a payment link for a human to approve — it cannot spend on its own. The same path runs end to end in the sandbox, free, with nothing printed.
One price. Postage included.
Printing, the envelope and USPS postage are in the number, no matter which surface you send from.
$0.99
First-Class letter
1 page, black and white, envelope and postage included
Extra pages $0.25 · Color +$0.50/page · Tracking +$0.99
$12.99
Certified Mail
Proof of mailing and USPS tracking
The one landlords, courts and the IRS take seriously
$14.99
Certified + Return Receipt
Adds a signed electronic proof of delivery
The signed delivery record, emailed as a PDF
$24.99
Priority Mail
Flat-rate envelope, 1 to 3 day delivery
For the letter that cannot wait
Full detail on the pricing page.
Send it from your terminal.
A thin wrapper over the same public REST API the website uses.
✓ You approve the exact total✓ No account neededFrom $0.99
Common questions
Is the CLI live today?
Yes. `npx paperplane quote`, `paperplane send`, and `paperplane status` run against the live REST API today. No account, no API key.
Do I need to install anything?
`npx paperplane <command>` runs it with nothing installed. `npm install -g paperplane` keeps it around for scripts and CI.
How does the CLI pay for an order?
Every order carries its own payment: a prepaid credit code (--credit-code), or a paperplane payment link a human approves. --sandbox needs neither and mails nothing.
What does it cost?
The same prices as every other surface: $0.99 First-Class (extra pages $0.25, color $0.50/page, tracking $0.99), $12.99 Certified, $14.99 Certified with the electronic Return Receipt, $24.99 Priority.
Other ways to send
We support your method too — web, email, text or the CLI, one all-in price either way.