An address panel routes a box a courier already agreed to carry. A carrier label is the agreement.
The printable panel
Fill this in on paper after printing, or edit the text in your browser before you print. It is sized to 4 by 6 inches, set in a sans serif face, black on white. Use it as an address panel on a parcel that already carries paid postage, or as the duplicate address slip that goes inside the box.
Name
Street address
Apartment or suite
City, State ZIP
STREET ADDRESS
APARTMENT OR SUITE
CITY, STATE ZIP
Print at actual size rather than fit to page, cut around the border, and tape it down by the edges. Keep every address on one face of the carton so nothing has to be turned over on a moving belt.
What a genuine carrier label carries
The Postal Service publishes the anatomy of a parcel label, and the list is short enough to memorise. These eight are numbered in figure 1 of the Parcel Labeling Guide, version 3 release 5, read on postalpro.usps.com on 2026-07-28.
- Service icon block and service banner, which announce the class of service to a sorter at a glance.
- Postage payment area, the block that proves money changed hands. No template produces this.
- Return address section and endorsement section, the second of which carries instructions such as address service requests.
- Delivery address section, which the guide sizes at roughly 3 3/20 by 1 5/16 inches on a 4 by 6 layout, margins included.
- Intelligent Mail package barcode segment, about 1 1/2 inches tall, and the only reason tracking exists.
- Additional information and user segment, the one area a shipper may genuinely design.
USPS is direct about the boundary: “The USPS shipping label is a transportation document, and as such, its content is restricted to transportation information.” A logo or a tagline is allowed “as long as it does not interfere with any of the required elements”, and hyperlinks are barred apart from one specific pickup QR code. That is the whole design brief, and it explains why every carrier label in the world looks broadly the same.
What the real thing costs on a real lane
Template sites rarely mention the number that matters. A ceramic mug in a small box, quoted through the SMKlog calculator on 2026-07-28, Newark, NJ 07102 to Atlanta, GA 30303, came back like this.
| Carrier | Service | Price | Window returned |
|---|---|---|---|
| USPS | Ground Advantage | $8.48 | 8-9 business days |
| UPS | Ground Saver | $10.18 | none returned |
| UPS | Ground | $10.67 | 2-3 business days |
| FedEx | Ground Economy | $12.42 | 6-7 business days |
| UPS | 2nd Day Air | $16.58 | 2-3 business days |
Under nine dollars carried a two pound box six hundred miles with tracking attached, which is the part a blank template can never supply at any price. The Ground Saver row came back without a transit window at all, so none is shown rather than guessed.
One scope note. SMKlog sells parcel labels with no account and no monthly commitment — United States domestic, plus international to Canada, the UK, Germany and Australia, where the customs declaration is completed at checkout. We do not hold stock for anyone and we do not connect to marketplace back ends, so if that is what you came for, this is the wrong shop and we would rather say so now.
Template questions
Is a shipping label template the same as a shipping label?
No. A template is a layout for names and addresses. A carrier label is a purchase record with a tracking barcode and a postage payment block printed into it, and no template can create either of those. Print a template if you want a tidy address panel; buy a label if you want the parcel to move.
What has to be on a real carrier label?
The USPS Parcel Labeling Guide numbers eight elements: service icon block, service banner, postage payment area, return address section, endorsement section, delivery address section, Intelligent Mail package barcode segment, and an additional information and user segment. Those eight are numbered in figure 1 of the guide, version 3 release 5, on postalpro.usps.com, read 2026-07-28.
Can I design my own shipping label?
Only the parts that are yours to design. USPS states that the shipping label is a transportation document and that its content is restricted to transportation information, allowing a shipper logo or tagline as long as it does not interfere with any of the required elements. Everything else on the label is generated when postage is bought.
What font and colour should an address panel use?
Black on white, sans serif. USPS says labels should be printed in black ink on a white background and that fonts must be sans serif, naming Arial, Helvetica and Verdana, because address blocks are read by optical character recognition before any person sees them.