Calculator

Mailbox cost comparison

Four ways to receive mail somewhere other than your front door, priced over a year, with the trip to the counter counted as a cost rather than ignored. Every price is an editable default: box rates vary store to store, so put in the numbers your local counters actually quoted. Nothing you type leaves your browser.

Your situation

Months to compare

Counter trips per month

Minutes per trip, round trip

Your time, $ per hour

Miles per trip

Cents per mile

Counting the trip is the whole point of this calculator. A box that costs eight dollars a month and forty minutes a week is not cheap.

Prices to compare

PO Box, per 6 months

Private mailbox, per month

Private mailbox setup fee

Virtual mailbox, per month

Coworking address, per month

Virtual mailbox extras

Items scanned per month

Scans included in the plan

Cost per extra scan

Forwards per year

Cost per forward, all in

Cheapest over 12 months

Virtual mailbox service

Virtual mailbox service: $336
USPS PO Box: $636
Private mailbox at a store: $735
Coworking or virtual office: $883

No trips at all: the counter cost disappears and is replaced by per-scan and per-forward fees. The more mail you get, the worse it prices.

All four, with the catch

Option	Total	Per month	The catch
Virtual mailbox service Scanned to an app, forwarded on request	$336	$28	No trips at all: the counter cost disappears and is replaced by per-scan and per-forward fees. The more mail you get, the worse it prices.
USPS PO Box Post office lobby, semi-annual fee	$636	$53	Cheapest per month in most towns, but it is not a street address, and the Postal Service will not hold a UPS or FedEx parcel in it.
Private mailbox at a store Street address, staff sign for parcels	$735	$61	A real street address with a PMB line, and somebody at a counter who can sign. You still have to be in town often enough to empty it.
Coworking or virtual office Business address plus a desk or meeting room	$883	$74	Only makes sense if you want the room as well as the address. Priced here at half the counter trips because you are going in anyway.

Once you know which shape fits, find the counters near you in the state index, and read the plain comparison of the three for what the money does not show.