BREAKING: USPS slashes address verification to 60 addresses/hour. What now?
Smarty

Greek gods, as it turns out, have a lot to say to the mortals on Earth and the souls in Hades. 

What they don’t have is time to travel from Olympus all the way to Earth or Hades just to tell a mere mortal to perform 12 labors… or eat a magical herb… or free Odysseus.

That’s why the gods have a personal messenger: Hermes. Equipped with winged sandals, Hermes travels between Olympus, Earth, and the underworld with lightning speed (Get it? Lightning? Because his dad is Zeus? 🤣)

Smarty also knows a thing or two about outrageous speed, and that’s not where our similarities with Hermes end.

Hermes isn’t just the messenger of the gods; he’s the god of commerce and travelers. We're pretty great at boosting ecommerce efficiency with our address autocomplete tool, and helping travelers—whether they’re technicians, installers, bus drivers, or repair specialists—reach their destinations on time, the first time.

Plus, just like Hermes, the god of language, we don't break a sweat when it comes to international communication. Our SDKs support 15+ coding languages, and our transliteration capabilities are out of this world.

And, you know, we both think we’re pretty witty. 

If we haven’t convinced you that Hermes is Smarty’s mascot made in Olympus, read on. We’re ready to win you over.

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The legend of Hermes and Smarty includes:

Winged-sandal speed

Using his winged sandals, Hermes travels to Hades, Athens, Olympus, and back without breaking a sweat. 

Smarty doesn’t have winged sandals, but our APIs can process addresses at breakneck speeds. 

Our most basic plan, starting at just $17 per month, can process 25,000 addresses per second, 1.5 million addresses per minute, and over 2 billion addresses per day. That's 250 times faster than some well-known competitors, and 1.5 million times faster than the USPS API!

Need more speed? Our APIs can process 75,000 addresses every second, 4.5 million addresses every minute, and 10 million addresses in just over two minutes. And our response times for address lookups? Oh, they’re just sub-500ms.

Text image that says: Smarty's APIs can process 75,000 addresses in 1 sec, 4.5 million addresses in 1 minute, and 10 million addresses in under 5.5 minutes.

Nothing needs to be installed on a physical server or computer, so onboarding is fast, too. Our cloud-based solutions can be deployed in just a few hours or days. We consistently update them for performance and security, so you’ll never need an IT expert on-site.

Hermes utilizes speed to deliver messages between worlds. Smarty uses speed to provide address data solutions that can handle your worst address issues in record time. Do we sound MFEO (made for each other 😜) yet?

Empowering commerce

Hermes isn’t only known for his speed, he’s also known as the god of commerce.

Smarty hasn’t quite reached god-level, but our address autocomplete solutions definitely help ecommerce companies level up their game.

Address autocomplete is a form checkout feature that suggests valid addresses to customers as soon as they’ve entered the first character of their address. 

On average, it takes 20–40 keystrokes to type an address. Autocomplete cuts 80% of those keystrokes by offering addresses in a drop-down. Customers find theirs and quickly select it before they can say “Hermes”—or become frustrated and abandon their purchase. 

In addition to shortening address-entry time, address autocomplete: 

If those benefits don’t sound like a blessing from the god of commerce himself, we don’t know what will. 😆

Patron of travelers

Image showing the ruins of a Greek temple

It’s pretty clear that Hermes represents Smarty’s speed and ecommerce solutions, but his story goes far beyond that. 

Hermes is also the patron of travelers. He guides merchants and messengers to make sure they stay safe on their journeys. The same protective spirit helps modern travelers, like technicians, drivers, and service providers, find the right location the first time, every time a truck is rolled out.

A truck roll occurs when a technician uses a vehicle to reach a location to provide a service, such as installing devices, resolving network issues, or repairing equipment. For industries like telecommunications, as well as shipping and logistics, truck rolls are essential.

As the god of commerce, Hermes protects travelers from dangers like robbers, rough roads, and harsh weather to help them arrive at their destination safely.

Good address data protects truck rolls from dispatching drivers to incorrect addresses, wasting time and resources, delaying services, and leaving customers unhappy. Accurate address data enables successful truck rolls, reducing customer churn and increasing revenue.

Once again, Hermes proves himself as the perfect candidate for Smarty’s mascot. He embodies the speed and safety of delivery, as well as the precision that keeps commerce and connection moving forward. And, his resume doesn’t end there.

God of language

In order to deliver messages from the gods to anyone, anywhere in the world, Hermes can understand and speak any language. This gift makes him the ultimate bridge between humans and the gods.

We can’t claim to know every language, but we can report that our SDKs support most modern coding languages, including Go, Ruby, and Rust, connecting systems, platforms, and applications with people around the world

On top of that, our global address solutions—which cover all 250 countries and territories—are equipped with transliteration. When faced with an address that includes non-Latin characters, this feature converts those characters to ASCII characters, which computers can recognize and process.

We’re confident our SDKs and international tools could keep up with Hermes. Whether he needed a message delivered to Greece or Egypt, we could provide the address data needed to get it there.

Witty trickster 

As our mascot, Hermes would absolutely highlight our spunk, wit, and tongue-in-cheek pizzazz. He was the original messenger with personality, and that same energy flows through everything we do at Smarty.

We’re so witty, we turn our employee bios on fun mode, and never let a special holiday—like Hobbit Day and Pluto Demoted Day—pass by without making a fuss.

We’re also pretty determined to make address data anything but a yawn-fest. We talk about weird addresses like they’re animals in a zoo, property data like it’s a tool for sasquatch hunting, and bad address data like it’s an ugly sweater. Hermes would be proud. He’s been known to turn business into something clever and exciting.

Hermes also knows when to shift gears. The only time we dial back his spunk is when we’re showing you how to integrate Smarty. 

When it comes to documentation, we pride ourselves on clear communication, meaning you won’t find any technical jargon to scratch your head over. Whether you’re looking for information on billing, security, or methodology, we’ll give you the transparent truth.

Conclusion

Have we sold you on Smarty’s new mascot yet? Hermes and Smarty both have:

  • Mind-boggling speed
  • The ability to help deliveries and truck rolls succeed
  • A mastery over languages and transliteration
  • A dash of mischief and humor

Even if Hermes doesn’t land the job as Smarty’s mascot, one thing is clear: if Hermes needed an address validated, he’d use Smarty. We’re the only ones fast and accurate enough to keep up with him.

Ready to see if Smarty can make your address data mythically accurate? Try our solutions for free. You’ll be able to see why Hermes would give us his stamp of approval. 😉 

Image showing Hermes's stamp of approval

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Introducing Smarty’s mascot… Hermes?
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Greek gods, as it turns out, have a lot to say to the mortals on Earth and the souls in Hades. What they don’t have is time to travel from Olympus all the way to Earth or Hades just to tell a mere mortal to perform 12 labors… or eat a magical herb… or free Odysseus. That’s why the gods have a personal messenger: Hermes. Equipped with winged sandals, Hermes travels between Olympus, Earth, and the underworld with lightning speed (Get it? Lightning? Because his dad is Zeus? 🤣)Smarty also knows a thing or two about outrageous speed, and that’s not where our similarities with Hermes end.
How to build and validate address lists for direct mail marketing
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Looking to build a direct mail marketing campaign? You’ve come to the right spot. Before you can send marketing mail like a pro, you’ll need to build a list of verified addresses. Otherwise, frequent misdeliveries and costly redeliveries can take the wind right out of your campaign’s sails. On top of that, a bad address list could lead you to miss out on mind-blowing postal discounts. 😱Don’t let bad addresses capsize your campaign. With a US Master Address List of over 210 million verified addresses—available by state, county, or nationwide—and shipshape US Address Verification, you can construct new lists or clean active ones with the swagger of a seasoned captain.
USPS API rate limit capped at 60 requests per hour: How to prepare and why many are choosing Smarty
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Because who doesn’t love juggling one more thing during the holiday season…? A major shift in the address-verification landscape is approaching at the beginning of the new year. On January 25, 2026, the United States Postal Service (USPS) will officially retire its long-standing Web Tools APIs, a free API that previously allowed for approximately 5 address lookups per transaction. This includes the legacy USPS Address Information APIs that many organizations have depended on for years. Under USPS’s new API structure, the default quota for many services, including the Addresses API, is 60 requests per hour.

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