Lob vs USPS across volume (Smarty bills annually, shown separately)
Lob's cheapest available plan and USPS's 2026 bracket rate, compared at common monthly volumes. Your entered volume is highlighted.
| Suchanfragen/Monat | Lob (cheapest plan) | USPS (2026 rate) | Günstiger |
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The free government address API is gone — three very different replacements
Until early 2026, USPS's Web Tools platform let any registered developer standardize and validate US addresses for free — no subscription, no per-call fee. That platform was fully retired on January 25, 2026, and the legacy free version of the Addresses API specifically stopped working on July 12, 2026. Its replacement moved to paid consumption pricing from August 1, 2026: $10 flat for the first 2,000 lookups in a month, then roughly $4.50 per 1,000 up to 10,000, $4.25 per 1,000 up to 50,000, and $4.00 per 1,000 beyond that — and you now need a signed license agreement before USPS issues credentials at all. The exact marginal-vs-bracket billing mechanics beyond the published rate bands aren't fully detailed by USPS; confirm directly before committing at scale.
Lob never had a perpetual free tier, but it never required paperwork either: the Entwickler rate is pure pay-as-you-go at $0.05/lookup with no subscription and no minimum, usable from your first API call. Start-up ($25/mo) includes 1,000 lookups then $0.025/extra; Wachstum ($450/mo) includes 50,000 then $0.009/extra — a conventional base-plus-overage SaaS shape that gets cheaper per lookup as you commit to a higher plan.
Smarty takes a third approach entirely: a 42-day free trial with 1,000 lookups and no card, then an annual Professional plan starting around $552/year (roughly $46/month) sized to one of several yearly lookup tiers (12K up to 2M lookups/year) — Smarty states explicitly that there's no overage on a depleted plan; you simply buy another block. Because Smarty's higher-volume tier prices aren't published in a simple table, the calculator above only shows its base reference rate — for a specific high-volume quote, Smarty's own sizing tool is the source of truth.
So funktioniert dieser Rechner
Der Smarty vs Lob vs USPS Address Verification Cost Calculator computes Lob's cheapest available plan at your entered monthly volume as min(volume×$0.05, $25+max(0,volume−1000)×$0.025, $450+max(0,volume−50000)×$0.009) — the lowest of pay-as-you-go, Startup or Growth pricing. USPS's 2026 rate is computed per the published bracket: $10 flat up to 2,000 lookups, then volume/1000 × $4.50 up to 10,000, × $4.25 up to 50,000, or × $4.00 beyond that. Smarty bills annually in lookup blocks rather than by monthly volume, so it's shown as a static reference ($46/mo equivalent at its base Professional tier) rather than computed against your entered number — Smarty's own sizing tool is the source of truth for larger annual commitments.
These are published self-serve/reference rates as of the "last checked" date above, not live quotes — USPS's bracket mechanics and Smarty's per-tier annual pricing in particular aren't fully detailed in public tables. Confirm current pricing and exact terms directly with each provider before committing, especially USPS's new license-agreement requirement.
Häufig gestellte Fragen
Is the USPS address API still free in 2026?
No. The legacy free USPS Web Tools Addresses API was retired on July 12, 2026, and the whole Web Tools platform shut down on January 25, 2026. Its replacement moved to paid consumption pricing on August 1, 2026: $10 flat for the first 2,000 lookups/month, then roughly $4.50 per 1,000 up to 10,000, $4.25 per 1,000 up to 50,000, and $4.00 per 1,000 beyond that — plus a signed license agreement to get access at all. For over a decade USPS address standardization was the default free option; every app that relied on it now needs a paid plan from USPS itself or a third-party vendor.
Which address verification API is cheapest?
It depends on volume. Under roughly 2,000 lookups/month, USPS's new $10 flat fee is hard to beat. Between 2,000 and 50,000/month, Lob's pay-as-you-go Developer rate ($0.05/lookup with no subscription) or its Startup plan ($25/mo + 1,000 included + $0.025/extra) are usually competitive with USPS's per-1,000 brackets, depending on exactly where you land. At high sustained volume, Smarty's annual Professional plan (from $552/year, roughly $46/month, sized to your yearly lookup tier) can work out cheaper than paying Lob's per-call rate every month — but Smarty bills annually with no overage, so you're committing to a block of lookups up front, not paying as you go.
Can I just switch straight to a paid vendor instead of the new USPS API?
Many teams are. The new USPS Addresses API requires a signed license agreement before you get credentials, on top of the new per-lookup fees — more friction than the old free Web Tools sign-up. Smarty and Lob both offer instant self-serve API keys (Smarty: free 42-day trial with 1,000 lookups, no card; Lob: pay-as-you-go from the first call, no minimum). If your volume is low and you want to start testing today without paperwork, that self-serve speed is often worth more than USPS's per-lookup rate at the bottom of the scale.
What's the difference between address verification and geocoding?
Address verification (this page) checks whether an address is real, deliverable and correctly formatted — CASS-style standardization, often with ZIP+4 and delivery-point data. Geocoding (see our separate calculator) converts an address into latitude/longitude coordinates for mapping. Many apps need both: verify the address is real and deliverable, then geocode it to place a pin on a map. Smarty, Lob and USPS all focus on verification; Google Maps, Mapbox and HERE are geocoding-first.