David Ono, Anchor: Well, while the cost of sending mail is rising, now there's a way to send letters for free. There's one catch though: you'll need a computer and access to the internet and no it's not email. Eyewitness News Consumer Specialist Ric Romero explains.

Ric Romero, Anchor: The U.S. Postal Service processes hundreds of millions of letters everyday. It costs thirty-four cents to send one First Class letter, if you write a lot of letters, that can add up quickly. For nearly a year now, Michael Sonntag has been sending letters to his granmother in St. Louis, Missouri without spending a penny on postage.

Michael Sonntag, Sends Free Mail: That's the cool thing is that it doesn't cost anything at your end to do it.

Romero: This Westside resident has a computer, his grandmother doesn't, so how does he do it? Well, Michael signs onto a service called Zairmail. The Portland, Oregon company allows anyone to send up to ten letters a day anywhere in the U.S. The letters are sent electronically to one of Zairmail's printing facilities across the country, including this one in Commerce, then the letters are packaged with coupons targeted to the receiver and mailed through the post office.

Wilson Zehr, Zairmail: If we can make sending a personal letter as easy as sending an email, that would be a big win and if we can do that and have it delivered overnight that would be even better and if we could do all that and provide the service for free that would be a slam dunk.

Romero: We signed up for Zairmail, it only took a few minutes to set up a free account. Zairmail says the letters are sent out the very next day... It doesn't have the personal touch of a hand written letter, but it's free and you'll save on paper, ink, envelopes, and most of all: postage. Michael Sonntag says, he not only saves on stamps, his grandmother gets to hear from him a lot more now.

Sonntag: She likes it on her end because she hears from me a lot more often, probably then she did before because I wasn't exactly the best at writing letters.

Download Zairmail KABC-TV Eyewitness News Report (7.1MB file)