Pressure Sealer vs. Folder-Inserter: Know Their Pros and Cons

This is a question, we receive quite often: What is the difference between a pressure sealer and a folder-inserter? What are their particular strengths? Simply put, the first produces folded-and-sealed mail pieces, the other outputs a common envelope. But let's have a closer look at it:

With a pressure sealer your letter is printed on a custom pressure sealing form which has cohesive glue pre-applied on its edges and can be used just like normal paper in your printer or copy machine. The pressure sealer folds the form and applies pressure to its edges, which makes the glue securely bond together. No envelope is needed and the envelope-stuffing step is eliminated, too (Fig. 1).

Figure 1: Example of a Pressure Sealed Mail Piece

In contrast, a folding-inserting machine (or envelope-stuffing machine) is fed with paper documents loaded into feed trays, from which the machine pulls the sheets in sequence, folds and inserts them into the envelope and seals it automatically. The folder-inserter is designed to be able to handle multiple sheets; even leaflets, flyers or return envelopes can be processed.

So, why restricting oneself to a one-sheet process instead of enjoying the flexibility of a folder-inserter? If you analyse the mailing process in your organisation, you may find that many times your outgoing mail comprises of only one page, such as invoices, cheques, PIN mailer, standard confirmation letters or vouchers. They may contain private and confidential information which need to be protected. Since the receiver of a pressure sealed mail piece needs to tear off the perforated sides in order to gain access to its content, this method adds an extra layer of data security to your process preventing unauthorised access to its content. Surely, you have heard that from 1 April 2016 Ministry of Manpower requires any employer to issue itemised pay slips to all its employees. Using a pressure sealer is a great way to distribute such sensitive data securely within your organisation. (You could even combine the pay slip and cheque in one form.) From what we said above, we can further conclude that a pressure sealer is usually simpler in design with less mechanical parts. Therefore, equipment as well as maintenance cost will be less and they are easier for your staff to operate. Table 1 gives an overview about the pros and cons of both solutions.

In summary, consider a pressure sealer if you want to process predominantly one-sheet mailers, especially if they contain confidential information. The much lower equipment cost may allow you to dedicate several machines to specific tasks of different departments in order to improve bottlenecks in your productivity. If you instead process various different mailing jobs, e.g. direct mail advertising, even including flyers or return envelopes, a folder-inserter will be required.

Mail Expertize LLP offers a great variety of affordable pressure sealers and folding-and-inserting machines and will be happy to help you finding the right solution for your application. Call 6749 0601 or contact us at sales@mailexpertize.sg.

Table 1: Pros and Cons of Pressure Sealer and Folding-Inserting-Machine

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