The short version
Choose Lob if you have engineers and your company needs to send mail programmatically at scale (statements, compliance letters, lifecycle postcards). Choose StampSherpa if you own a local business and want postcards designed, mailed, and tracked without writing a line of code.
What Lob is
Lob is the best-known direct-mail API: developer infrastructure used by financial services, healthcare, insurance, and ecommerce companies to trigger mail from their own systems. As of July 2026 its published plans: a free Developer tier (postcards from $0.905, up to 6,000 mailings a year), Startup at $260+ per month (postcards from $0.645, up to 75,000 a year), and Growth at $550+ per month (from $0.615, up to 150,000), plus enterprise tiers, address-verification products, and in-transit tracking throughout. Design, audience, strategy, and code are entirely on you: Lob prints and delivers what your software tells it to.
What StampSherpa is
StampSherpa is the opposite end of the spectrum: a finished consumer-grade product for owners. Paste your website, six cards design themselves, pick who gets one (a neighborhood on a map or a list you upload), and it is printed, mailed first class, and tracked with a scannable code, at flat monthly prices ($199 / $349 / $549). No API, no engineers, no per-piece invoices.
Side by side
| Lob | StampSherpa | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Engineering + ops teams at scale | Local business owners |
| Published pricing (July 2026) | $0 / $260+ / $550+ monthly platform + from ~$0.62-0.91 per postcard | $199 / $349 / $549 monthly, all-inclusive |
| How you use it | REST API, webhooks, your own code | A website: paste, pick, send |
| Design | You supply artwork/HTML | AI-designed from your website, monthly refresh |
| EDDM / neighborhood saturation | Not a product focus | Core feature, circle-on-a-map |
| Volume sweet spot | Tens of thousands to millions/year | Hundreds per month, recurring |
| Tracking | In-transit delivery events via API | QR response tracking + per-send dashboard |
Choose Lob if
- Mail must fire from your own software (statements, notices, lifecycle campaigns).
- You measure volume in the tens of thousands and have compliance needs.
- You have engineers to own the integration.
Choose StampSherpa if
- You want finished postcards, not printing infrastructure.
- Your volume is a neighborhood or a customer list, monthly.
- The only integration you want is "paste my website."