The whole direct-mail lane has been stuck on one thing: no price and no working API route for handwritten mail. The API turns out to be real, live and fully documented, and once we hold a key we can get exact per-piece prices for free, without their sales form. The one blocker left is that only RoboQuill can create the account, which is what the call is for. Below: the call script for Stuart, the pricing method, and Oliver's parallel lane.
The guides tell you to log in at portal.roboquill.io, and that hostname does not exist (NXDOMAIN). Same for the api.roboquill.io Stuart gave you on WhatsApp. The guides have the wrong TLD throughout: it's .com. On the right domain the portal is live, but it's a React single-page app that returns the same 200 shell for every path, so a 200 on /Register proves nothing. Reading its JavaScript bundle settles it:
/. There is no registration page to visit.POST /api/login (multipart username + password, cookie session) and POST /api/refresh. That's all.GET /api/Account, GET /api/Account/apikey, GET /api/Account/stripestatus, so the key is self-serve, once an account exists.POST /api/register, /api/signup, /api/users all 404, while /api/Account returns 405 and /api/login returns 400, i.e. those routes exist and validate, and registration genuinely isn't there.Correction: an earlier version of this page called that a "live self-serve registration page". That was wrong: it was a 200 from an SPA catch-all, read as a real form without checking what the app actually routes. Both guides were right all along: "Contact us at hello@roboquill.io to get your account created."
enquiries@theaiconsultant.co.uk asking them to create the account, and put the pricing questions in the same email, so one round-trip does both jobs. Draft is ready to send.X-Auth-Key.doppler secrets set ROBOQUILL_API_KEY --project infra --config prd. It's spend-capable: anyone holding it can place live orders on our account.From the portal bundle: Provance Ltd, company number 14298671, registered in England and Wales, VAT GB423106542, Sycamore Place, 1 South Road, Bourne, Lincolnshire, PE10 9JB. RoboQuill is the trading name. Worth knowing before invoices appear from a name you don't recognise, and it means VAT is reclaimable.
There is no public price or quote endpoint. Verified against their live OpenAPI spec today: the entire API is ten endpoints, all authenticated:
GET /Account · GET /Template · GET /Template/{code} · POST /Order · GET /Order · GET /Order/{id} · DELETE /Order · DELETE /Order/{id} · POST /Order/preview · GET /Activity
But POST /Order with "isTest": true runs the full validation and costing pipeline, and their own guide states test orders are "not printed or posted and do not consume credits". The response comes back with the money broken out:
{ "cost": "1.50", "vat": "0.30", "total": "1.80",
"postage_cost": "0.85", "status": "Queued", "isTest": false }So once you have a key, you can price every template against every country, for free, in about ten seconds, which is exactly the clear published price table their website declines to give you. Script is written and ready:
doppler run --project infra --config prd -- \
python3 ~/ClaudeProjects/Klaudius/postcards/roboquill/price-probe.py GB DEIt lists your enabled templates, fires one test order per template × country, and prints a cost / VAT / postage / total matrix, then writes price-matrix.json beside itself.
total or on top?Their example shows cost 1.50 + vat 0.30 = total 1.80, with postage_cost 0.85 sitting outside that sum. If postage is additive, the real landed figure is ~£2.65, not £1.80: a 47% difference, and it decides whether pen is viable at all.
The website's own framing supports additive: "prices exclude VAT; postage charged at cost." Don't model either way until it's confirmed: check GET /Activity after the first real order, and ask Stuart directly.
| Product | Published | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Handwritten note (A6/A5) | from £1.53 | 40–60 words works best. Full-colour logo on card, QR supported ("a review page, an offer or a loyalty link"), merge fields, 350gsm silk or uncoated, matching coloured envelope. Min 10 manual, none via API. |
| Handwritten letter (A4) | from £2.05 (~£2.96 with 2nd class) | The number in the sample pack. Not our unit. |
| Stannp printed A6 postcard | £0.96 all-in | Write-path already driven end-to-end. |
| Intelliprint printed A6 | £0.89 flat 1→5,000 | API proven with testmode:true. Leeds, same-day before 3pm. |
The real question this frames: pen costs roughly 2–3× printed. Handwriting only has to beat printed on response rate by that multiple to win, and on a first cold touch to a local business, it plausibly does. That's the bet, and the price probe turns it from a guess into arithmetic.
Important nuance: the note ships in an envelope, not as an open postcard. That's not a downside: a pen-addressed envelope is the single strongest A-pile signal there is. But it changes the QR mechanic: the recipient must open it before they can scan, so the envelope has to survive the bin on handwriting alone.
Mobile, from his own letter to you: he wrote "we'll contact you in a few days to discuss further", so this is an expected call, not a cold one:
Office: +44 1780 908124 · hello@roboquill.io · Sycamore Place, 1 South Road, Bourne, Lincolnshire, PE10 9JB
"Hi Stuart, Paul Cowen. You sent me a sample pack a few weeks back, the pen-written letter. Thanks, it's genuinely convincing, that's why I'm ringing. Five minutes?
Quick context: I build websites for local businesses and I reach them by post rather than email: they get a card, scan a QR, and it opens a site I've already built for them. So it isn't a one-off campaign; it's continuous, and it scales as it works. I've read your API guide. I just need an account raising so I can get a key. Four things and I can start building against it. Can I fire them at you?"
Names the sample (warm), states the model in one breath, signals recurring volume (which is what earns a real price rather than a list price) and tells him you've already done the reading, which changes the register of the whole call from prospect to integrator.
postage_cost inside total or on top?"
POST /Order takes a template code plus a fields object, so what we can actually say is bounded by what he sets up. The notes page says QR is supported; confirm it can be per-recipient (each business gets its own tracked URL), not one static QR for everyone. Per-recipient QR is the entire measurement model: without it, QR stats die.countryCode, so it's technically open, but the price and transit time to DE are unknown, and Oliver's entire half of the pipeline is DACH. Ask for it by email so it exists outside one phone.Then, if the call is going well: envelope-only: pen-addressed envelope around our own printed insert. That's the cheap hybrid, his handwriting on the outside (which is what beats the bin) with our economics on the inside. It's listed as a product, so it has a price.
"One thing that'll save you support tickets: both PDFs point at portal.roboquill.io and api.roboquill.io, and neither of those resolves. The working ones are .com. I only found the portal by guessing the TLD."
Costs nothing, is genuinely useful to him, and buys goodwill right before you ask for volume pricing. It also quietly demonstrates you've actually driven the API rather than skimmed the brochure.
"Hi Stuart, Paul Cowen. You sent me a sample pack (pen letter + QR card) and the API guides. I need an account raising so I can get an API key, and I want to talk volume: recurring UK + Germany, driven through your API. Four quick questions and I can get moving. When suits for 10 minutes tomorrow? Paul"
Short, states the money and the volume, gives him a reason to ring back in the morning. Don't put the four questions in the text: a written list gets answered with a brochure.
print.one onboarding hard-requires an EU-validated VAT number. Paul is structurally locked out: a GB number isn't in EU VIES post-Brexit, and there's no non-VAT path. Oliver's DACH company can sign up; Paul cannot.
Once in: pull an API key, and read the UK and DE landed prices off the dropdown by hand: the pricing calculator is client-side React and didn't recompute for Europe/World under scripted input, so only the ~€0.69/A6 NL default is confirmed. UK and DE are unknown until a human clicks it.
Same artwork, same list, both sent: Stannp (UK, £0.96 A6 all-in, write-path already driven) vs print.one (NL). Compare landed cost, days to letterbox, print quality.
Carry this correction in: Oliver has no print.one adapter, verified by reading ozdreamwalk/ozdreamsites directly. Zero references to print.one anywhere, and no postal send implementation at all; outreach.ts is email-only. This is unbuilt work, not a reuse. Scope it that way.
Post one real RoboQuill note to his own address and time it door-to-door.
"No problem" from a vendor and a note actually landing in Bavaria in four days are different facts. DACH is his half, so it should be his letterbox, and he can judge whether the handwriting reads as convincing in German, which none of us can.
Which lane does OzDreamSites run first: pen or printed? Same decision as Paul's, different geography and postage economics.
Worth an IDS slot at the next Weekly Pulse rather than a side conversation, because it decides which adapter gets built first.
| Where you land | Read | Next move |
|---|---|---|
| Account raised, price probe returns under ~£1.80 landed at volume, per-recipient QR confirmed | Pen lane is live | Build the RoboQuill adapter this week. Pen note on the Day-0 touch, printed on Day-15/25. |
| Works, but lands nearer £2.65 with postage on top | Premium touch only | Pen for the Day-0 touch on high-value prospects; printed at 89p for everything else. Test the split before committing volume. |
| No account raised within a day or two, or QR can't be per-recipient | Not a lane yet | Ship Intelliprint at 89p now. Revisit when he replies; the API is genuinely good, so it's worth keeping warm. |
Either way the lane moves this week: printed is tested, cheap and ready. The only thing pen can cost us now is the premium, and the price probe settles that for free.
Royal Mail does not sell "a mailing" to a small advertiser over the phone. What you are actually after is one of two things, and it pays to know which before you call:
The real question for Klaudius is the minimum volume: that is what decides whether we can access bulk rates at our size, or whether we ride a mailing house (Stannp/Intelliprint) who already has the account and the volume. Ask that first; it can end the call in 90 seconds.
"Hello, I'm setting up a direct mail programme for a small marketing business in Hertfordshire. Postcards and letters to local businesses, UK and Germany. I want to understand what's realistic at our size before I commit to a volume. Four quick questions."
That name matters: searching "German direct mail" gets you resellers. Dialogpost is Deutsche Post's own addressed advertising-mail product, the direct equivalent of Advertising Mail. There is also Postwurfsendung: unaddressed drops to every household in an area, which may suit a local trades offer better than buying data.
Same four questions as Royal Mail, plus one that only applies in Germany: ask whether Postwurfsendung (unaddressed) beats Dialogpost (addressed) for a local trades offer. If unaddressed works, it removes the entire list-broker cost from the German lane, which would make Germany cheaper to test than the UK.
This is the co-op / shared mailing model: several local businesses' offers in one envelope or on one card, each paying a share, so the postage is split rather than duplicated. It is the single biggest lever on unit economics we have: postage is the dominant cost, and it is the one cost that does not scale with the number of advertisers.
If Royal Mail says yes and Deutsche Post says no (or vice versa), that alone should decide which country we test first.
Brokers rent data far more often than they sell it: typically one-time use, seeded to detect reuse. Assume single-use pricing unless told otherwise, and budget for repeat rental if the programme repeats.
Ask every broker the same three things so the quotes are comparable: (1) rental or purchase, and how many uses; (2) does the file meet the carrier's discounted-rate addressing spec (question 4 on both calls); (3) what's the guaranteed deliverability/goneaway rate, and what's the credit if it's missed.
WhatsApp Business Platform explicitly supports fixed-line numbers, verified by voice call instead of SMS: WhatsApp rings the number and reads out the code. So a local 01279 number can, in principle, carry WhatsApp too.
The caveat is real though: WhatsApp's validation expects mobile numbers in most countries, and some UK geographic ranges are reportedly not recognised. So it works in theory and sometimes fails in practice, which makes this a test before committing, not a decision to take on paper.
| Option | For | Against |
|---|---|---|
| Local 01279 (Bishop's Stortford) | Reads local on a postcard, the whole point of the geo play. Cheap: from £2.50/mo (Second Ring), some from 99p/mo. SIP trunking available (PlexaTalk). | WhatsApp may or may not verify. No SMS on most geographic numbers. |
| UK mobile 07… | WhatsApp and SMS both certain. Reads personal, which suits a sole-trader client. | Loses the local-area signal that makes the postcard credible. |
Recommendation: buy one 01279 and one mobile: together they're under £15/month, which is noise against one client. Point both at the same Retell agent. Put the 01279 on the postcards, keep the mobile for WhatsApp and SMS. That removes the decision entirely, and at this price the decision costs more to make than to avoid.
Unverified Whether Retell's own UK numbers let you pick 01279 specifically. If not, buy the 01279 from a UK provider and bring it in over SIP, which is why the SIP route is listed even though the dashboard is simpler.
~/ClaudeProjects/Klaudius/postcards/roboquill/RoboQuill-API-Guide.pdf~/ClaudeProjects/Klaudius/postcards/roboquill/RoboQuill-Make-Zapier-Guide.pdf~/ClaudeProjects/Klaudius/postcards/roboquill/price-probe.py~/ClaudeProjects/Klaudius/postcards/vendor-comparison.md