For about sixteen years you could upload a photograph and get back real, valid US postage with your own picture on it. Weddings used it, small businesses used it, people used it for birth announcements.
It is gone. USPS shut the Customized Postage programme down in June 2020, and nothing has replaced it. If you find a guide telling you to order personalised stamps from one of the old vendors, that guide is out of date — and there are a lot of them still online.
What it actually was
Worth understanding, because it explains why it could be withdrawn so cleanly. Personalised postage was never a stamp in the philatelic sense. Technically it was a form of meter postage: a printed indicium carrying a postage-paid barcode, with your image sitting beside it on the label.
The scanner at the sorting facility read the barcode, deducted the value and cancelled it. The photograph was decoration attached to a meter impression.
That structure required a chain of approved parties — vendors authorised to generate and print the postage indicia, partners authorised to approve imagery and fulfil orders, and partners authorised only to sell and fulfil while working through someone else who could produce the indicia. Image review sat inside that chain, because someone had to check what was being printed alongside government postage.
When the programme ended, the whole chain ended with it.
What to do instead
There is no direct substitute, so pick the substitute that matches what you wanted the photograph for:
- You wanted the envelope to look personal. Choose a commemorative that means something — the year you met, a species, a place, an artist. A real stamp with a real design reads better than a printed label ever did.
- You wanted branding on business mail. That is what a printed indicium and a well-designed envelope do. The stamp was never the right place for it.
- You wanted a keepsake. A custom rubber stamp or a printed sticker beside the postage does everything the label did, at a fraction of the price, with no approval chain.
So where do you actually buy stamps
Since the question that brought most people to personalised postage was really just "where do I get stamps without driving to the post office" — the honest list:
Your bank, possibly from the ATM
This is the option people forget. Several banks and credit unions sell stamps at branches or through ATMs, including Fifth Third (headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio), KeyBank (Cleveland, Ohio — the only major bank based in that city, and around twenty-fourth largest in the country), Wells Fargo (San Francisco), and U.S. Bank (Minneapolis, and fifth largest).
Some of them let you filter their branch and ATM locator by whether that machine sells stamps. If you are already withdrawing cash, it is a free errand.
USPS.com
The full current catalogue, searchable by colour, shape, theme and denomination. Nothing here is fake, which is the main argument for it. The limit is that it stocks what is currently in print — a year-old design is simply not listed.
Stamp dealers
For used stamps, mixed-country packets and older material. Cheap, varied, and the right channel if you are collecting rather than mailing. Find them through the American Philatelic Society's dealer resources rather than a phone directory.
Stamp shows
Dealers, exhibits and talks in one room. Also the fastest way to learn what you are looking at, which pays for itself the first time you avoid overpaying for something common.
Online resellers
The widest selection by a distance — retired designs, bulk quantities, discounted stock. Also the only channel where counterfeits are a real risk, so the seller matters more than the price. A seller that can tell you where stock came from is worth more than one that is a few cents cheaper.
Correspondence
Not a purchase, but the cheapest supply there is: write to someone who also likes stamps, and ask them to use interesting ones. You will both end up with a better collection than you started with.
Best deals on Forever stamps
Forever stamps hold their postal value through every rate increase, so buying below face is a saving that never decays. It is the closest thing to a free lunch in mailing, and it is only available on the resale side — the post office has never discounted postage and does not now.
Where to buy
Current issues from USPS — see also their own list of places that sell stamps and the American Philatelic Society's guide. Retired designs and volume from a verified surplus channel such as Forever Stamp Center — browse flags, flowers or holiday designs.
The short version
Personalised postage ended in June 2020 and is not coming back. For ordinary stamps: your bank may sell them, USPS.com has everything currently in print, dealers and shows have the old material, and resellers have retired designs below face if you buy from someone accountable.
More on buying Forever stamps
- 👉 The Most Counterfeited Stamp in America Is the Flag
- 👉 The Love Stamp From the Year You Met
- 👉 What a Postage Stamp Actually Is
USPS specialist based in Los Angeles with extensive experience in postal operations and customer service. Certified in mail management and trained at the USPS Business Mail Academy, she offers reliable guidance on Forever Stamps and practical mailing solutions.
