$9.99 base plan
A useful starting point — but not a complete monthly estimate.
MailboxScout tool
Virtual Mailbox Real Cost Calculator
Choose a provider, plan and realistic monthly usage. We estimate the known service cost using published pricing — instead of pretending the headline subscription price tells the whole story.
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The $9.99 plan may not be a $9.99 month
Your real cost depends on how much mail you receive and what you ask the provider to do with it.
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Scans + forwarding + handling
The part of the bill that changes with your actual mail habits.
Our approach: compare the provider's published base price with the services you are likely to use — especially Open & Scan requests, page scans, forwarding, postage and storage or overage charges.
Build your monthly usage
Start with a preset or enter your own numbers. You can change anything.
Anytime Mailbox pricing varies by local operator. Enter the exact fees shown for the address you are considering.
Mail & scanning
Used where a provider charges by page or includes a monthly page allowance.
Optional. Example: 2 letters stored 10 chargeable days = 20 item-days.
Physical forwarding
Useful for providers that charge per item when consolidating.
Shipping rates depend on destination, carrier, weight and dimensions. Enter your own monthly estimate so we do not invent a postage rate.
Step 2
Compare this same usage across providers
MailboxScout automatically tests the published plans we can model and shows the lowest estimated known monthly cost for the usage above. Postage uses the same budget you entered so the comparison stays understandable.
| Provider | Best-fit plan | Base | Known extras | Est. total | Model note |
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Important: “lowest” here means lowest under this model and your inputs — not universally cheapest. Address-specific pricing, shipping rates and services can change the result.
What this first provider-specific version includes
The calculator models published plan prices and the most important predictable usage fees. Where a provider publishes variable shipping or location pricing, we do not fabricate a number: we either use your postage budget or mark the pricing as location-specific.
How the models differ
- iPostal1: plan allowance, mail-item overage and single-order content scan pricing are modeled. Optional scan bundles are not automatically applied, so heavy scanners may be able to lower the result.
- Traveling Mailbox: envelope allowance, monthly page-scan allowance, overages and the published $2 forwarding fee per shipment are modeled.
- PostScan Mail: incoming-mail overage, included Open & Scans by plan, extra pages and forwarding handling are modeled.
- VirtualPostMail: envelope allowance, included content scans and published extra-scan/page pricing are modeled; shipping remains variable.
- PO Box Zone: the calculator uses the published annual plan prices as monthly equivalents, plan-specific mailout handling fees and the provider's $1-per-10-page scan schedule. Postage remains your input.
- U.S. Global Mail: plan price, monthly-equivalent interior-scan allowance, $3 additional Open & Scan and published physical-mail storage rate are modeled.
- Anytime Mailbox: because local operators set pricing, the calculator switches to custom local inputs instead of pretending one universal Anytime price exists.
Next version: we can add address-level pricing, annual-vs-monthly billing, package storage, check deposits, recipient fees and provider-specific shipping examples.