Introduction
Organizing your essential packages and mail while on the road is a massive headache for the RV community. Long holidays must be cut short, and panicked phone calls must be made to resolve the simple issues of mail deliveries.
This is even more frustrating for ‘RV Lifers’ who have taken to the road full-time to fulfill a nomadic lifestyle. Fortunately, RV enthusiasts have come to the rescue and produced the same services necessary for long-term RV use.
Escapees and Americas Mailbox offer an address service that will organize your mail and give you an address for insurance companies and driving licenses.
Escapees vs America’s Mailbox: Which Mail Forwarding Service Is Better?
Comparison Table
Here is a simple breakdown of some of the services offered by both of the mailbox companies:
| Features | Escapees | Americas Mailbox |
| Plan Price Range | $95 – $130 | $150 – $230 (Excl. Tax) |
| Address Location | Real street address across the US | Only South-Dakota address available |
| Scanning Service | $10 Per month $0.50 per interior scan | Only available with Titanium Plan |
| Sign Up Fee | $50 Fee +$49 Club Fee | $25 Fee |
| Online Storage | Unlimited | 2GB |
Price
As with essentially every item we purchase, the price is a significant factor. In this instance, we are exchanging our hard-earned cash for a reliable and incredibly useful service.
Moreover, there would be very few alternatives to choose from without the service. There are a few competitors in the market, but for the moment, these are the market leaders in the US.
They are still getting to grips with the market as they are mostly catering to the needs of RV owners and, more specifically, RV long-termers/lifers. Therefore, a non-competitive market is likely to drive up the price.
Luckily, if we compare the price ranges between both services, they are not particularly expensive considering the value of their service. Escapees are considerably cheaper, and their price range is inclusive of tax.
They offer three price points $90, $115, and $135. Each increment affords a little extra service, including mail sorting and organization, and the two more expensive options allow you to access the document scanning service for an additional charge.
However, it is worth noting that you must be a member of the RV Club to gain access to the mailing service. This is a $49 per year payment, which gives you access to the community and, by extension, the service.
Ultimately it means that the initial service is the annual fee combined with an unavoidable additional $49 for your RV Club membership.
America’s Mailbox offer initially offers a high price point with five price points. More expensive options give the user a higher limit of mail that can be associated with accounts.
The basic bronze package only allows seven mail items per year which can be very limiting and require a lot of pre-consideration. Alternatively, it’s more prestigious option, the Titanium, offers a full range of almost unlimited services with multiple useful features.
Unfortunately, the American Mailbox service is comparatively expensive. For example, the titanium service is $230 + tax which can push it into the region of $270. Compare this to the $130 Escapee category C service you can really notice the yearly difference.
Sign-Up Fees
Hidden costs can be a frustrating complication to deal with, particularly for the budget conscience. In this case, there is not so much of a hidden cost but an initial sign-up fee which is significant for each option.
It is a relatively new concept that aims at curbing the expense of a business by weeding out flaky buyers and covering the cost of people who will only sign up for the minimum period of time.
However, it does not fail to be an annoying, somewhat unnecessary cost for potentially loyal customers. In both cases, you have a one-time initial fee as a new customer, which you pay once.
However, this begins to get complicated as Escapee requires you to be a member of their RV Club, which is an ongoing $49 fee every year.
Potential customers are able to view the mail service but are unable to purchase the subscription without first showing their club membership. This sneaky tactic tricks customers into thinking they are paying a cheaper rate for the service.
America’s mailbox is more transparent in this respect. There is a mandatory $25 sign-up fee that is associated with each of the packages. They are very upfront about the sign-up fee.
Although it remains an irritating additional cost to factor into a customer’s budget, they are clear about the fee from the onset.
Moreover, America’s Mailbox employs a referral scheme as a means of cheap and effective marketing. The referral scheme changes but often offers reimbursement or eliminates the sign-up fee for new and current users.
Nullifying the signup fee is an excellent way to attract new customers and make the deal appear better.
Scanning Service
The purpose of sending your mail to a holding company is to maintain control over your essential documents and letters.
Therefore, it is crucial that you know what is in your mailbox to act and respond appropriately. Hence, the scanning service is one of the most crucial features of these services. Without it, you will not be aware if a crucial letter has arrived.
Escapee’s service does not include scanning service as standard. Customers are alerted to their mail via email and their online platform, where the user is prompted to forward or store the mail.
Mail scanning services require an additional $10 per month, which forward copies of all the envelopes that are delivered and uploaded to the online platform.
For an additional $0.50 per envelope, Escapee can open and scan the internal documents, which are available to customers at their convenience.
This is a critical service for any official letters as it allows significant information to be easily passed onto the customer. After review, customers can still opt to forward the physical letters to an address of their choosing.
America’s Mailbox offers a similar service. They can scan and store the exterior and interior of any delivered envelopes. They are then uploaded to the cloud, which contains a maximum of 2GB of storage.
Unfortunately, there are some caveats with this service. Firstly, it is a service only available to Titanium package holders, which is their most expensive service.
Moreover, it costs $1 per envelope that is opened and scanned, which is a substantial amount considering the overall cost of the package and the number of envelopes you may need to view per year.
It is compounded by the highly limiting 2GB storage capacity, which is feeble compared to the cost of this essential service.
Conclusion
Escapees and America’s Mailbox are two very highly rated services that are used in abundance by RV enthusiasts across the US.
They both offer a similar but subtly differing service organizing customers’ mail to ensure they can continue an RV vacation or lifestyle smoothly for longer periods. Price and quality of service are two key factors that have been compared.
Although America’s Mailroom offers a more expensive overall service, the fee plan is more transparent from the beginning, with very few hidden costs. Alternatively, Escapee provides a cheaper overall service, but it is peppered with hidden or unclear costing.
Ultimately, both services are of a high standard and are generally well-reviewed. It is up to individual customer’s needs which will dictate the optimal service for them.