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Mailing List Builder: pick an area, see who lives there
Search a city, county or ZIP, draw an area, or pick a Congressional, State Senate or State Assembly district. You get the household count for what you selected, the income, homeownership and age profile behind it, and what the postage costs to mail it.
What the numbers are
- Households from the 2020 Census blocks inside your area, with occupancy from the ACS 2023 5-year survey.
- Filters from Census distribution tables for each neighborhood (block group), so one filter is a published figure.
- Postage from the USPS Notice 123 rates we mail at.
A city or county you search is selected by its own boundary, the way a district is. That boundary or a shape you draw is counted from the 2020 Census blocks inside it, so the count follows the line. A ZIP you search is counted whole. Draw with the tools at the top left (polygon, rectangle and circle, plus Freehand, which traces an area as you drag), or use the search box and the district tab.
Districts are counted from the 2020 Census blocks inside them.
A quarter mile is 1,320 ft · half a mile 2,640 ft · one mile 5,280 ft.
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Carrier routes in this area
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We build the CASS-processed mailing list after you order, with NCOALink move update when the mailing needs it. These counts are for planning.
Block counts, every state: 5,929,301 2020 Census blocks with housing or residents (housing units and population), with occupancy and demographics from the ACS 2023 5-year survey for each block group. ZIP code areas: ACS 5-year 2023 (table-based summary file), gazetteer 2024. City, county, ZIP code and district boundaries: US Census TIGERweb. Covering 32,828 ZIP code areas and 128,701,376 US households.
What this tool does
Counts you can put in front of a client
Every number on this page comes from a published source and names it. The count is built from the 2020 Census blocks inside your area. Each block takes its occupancy and characteristics from its block group in the ACS 5-year survey. Either way the filters read the area's own distribution tables rather than applying a national average.
One filter is a published figure
Income, householder age, tenure and children each come from a Census table published for every block group and every ZIP code area. Apply one and the count uses that published figure for your area: each block group's share of the households counted from blocks, labeled Published share, or the exact count for whole ZIPs, labeled Exact count.
Two filters make an estimate, and the panel says so
The Census publishes those tables separately, so combining homeowners with an income band means assuming the two are independent. That is a modeled figure, and the panel labels it Estimate rather than presenting it as a count.
Postage at the rates we mail
The postage line uses the USPS Notice 123 rates loaded in our production system, at the shape your mailpiece takes. Printing is not priced here: it depends on stock, finishing and run length, so it comes as a quote.
What this page does not tell you is who those households are as people. Lifestyle and purchase-behavior targeting comes from consumer data providers rather than the Census, and we would rather source it properly and tell you what it costs than approximate it here. The counts above describe an area; the final count comes from the list itself, after CASS standardization, NCOALink move update and deduplication. That work is included when you order. The free address list tool is a preliminary check you can run on a list of your own in a free account: it standardizes the postal fields, flags records to review and can remove duplicates, but it does not run CASS, NCOALink or DPV.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Where do these household counts come from?
From the 2020 Census: the housing units in every census block inside your area, turned into households with each block group's occupancy rate from the American Community Survey five-year estimates. Both are published by the US Census Bureau, bundled into our system and refreshed when the Census publishes a new release; the releases in use are printed under the map. City, county, ZIP code and district boundaries come from Census TIGERweb. There is no API key in this page and no call to a data broker.
Is this a mailing list I can download?
No. This tool counts and prices an area so you can plan a campaign. The mailing list itself is built when you order: addresses are CASS standardized, run through NCOALink for movers, deduplicated and presorted for postage. That file is what gets mailed, and its final count is usually a little different from an area estimate.
How accurate are the filtered counts?
A single filter uses one published Census figure: each block group's published share applied to the households counted from blocks. Combining two or more is an estimate, because the Census publishes each distribution separately and combining them assumes they are independent. The panel labels which one you are looking at.
Can I select by political district?
Yes. Choose a state and a Congressional, State Senate or State Assembly district and the tool outlines it on the map. It counts the 2020 Census blocks inside the district. Districts are drawn from whole blocks, so the housing units and population are the 2020 Census counts for the blocks the district is made of.
Can I select a city or a county?
Yes. Search for it and pick it from the list. The tool outlines the city or county on the map from its Census boundary and counts inside that line, not a circle around it. The count comes from the 2020 Census blocks inside the boundary. A ZIP code you search is counted whole.
Why is there no printing price?
Because an honest one needs a conversation. Printing depends on the stock, the finishing, whether the piece folds or tabs, and the run length. Send the selection through and you get printing, data processing and postage in one quote.
Can I mail everyone in an area without a list?
Yes, that is saturation mail or EDDM, where you cover whole carrier routes rather than selected households. It carries the lowest postage rates and needs no list. The EDDM route builder is the tool for that.
Ready to mail this area?
Send the selection through and we will quote the list, the printing and the postage together, with the data sources named.