Why Use Smarty
Address validation offers many benefits—less returned mail, better address data, consolidated duplicate addresses, improved communication with customers, reduced mailing costs, less time dealing with bad data, and increased delivery speeds. Smarty gives you all of that, and then some.
USPS and International Address Verification
Not only do we verify addresses in the United States, we validate international ones too! Need to validate a client's address in Paris? No problem. Need the geocode for a home in Berlin? We've got you covered. Want to verify the address of a package going to Mozambique? Done. Our international address system covers over 240+ countries and territories.
Faster than Fast
Other address verification services might be fast, and that's pretty good, but we're WAY faster than that. Our service is by far the fastest that you will find. Even other companies that offer a "local" solution that you would host on your own machine often can't achieve the kinds of speeds that we can get "over the wire" from a standard machine. We have streamlined everything that we do in order to get the data to you as fast as possible. Smarty is capable of processing thousands of addresses per second (per user), and we're happy to take the time with you to help your technicians take advantage of that speed. And if you need it even faster, check out our tips for optimizing the API. If you're only doing one address (or just a few) then speed doesn't matter. But if your clients need speed, you won't find anything faster than Smarty. View speed samples.
Guaranteed Uptime
We know you're using our service to help run your business, so you need to be sure that our service will be available (and fast) when you need it. We work hard to ensure that our service is always available. We have a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that acts as your guarantee that our service will be available. The USPS has no such SLA that guarantees uptime. Their API is free, so there is little incentive for them to assure uptime. A USPS API outage once left many of their users high and dry for about 36 hours—a potential disaster for your business processes. We don't do downtime.
CASS Certified
Smarty is an official CASS-certified USPS vendor. The Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) enables the USPS to evaluate the accuracy of software that corrects and matches street addresses. Once an address has been cleaned up, standardized, and verified as deliverable, you can be nearly 100% sure that it will be delivered as expected. (Of course things like meteorites, volcanoes, or a loose pack of rabid dogs can still cause delays to postal delivery. But at least you can say you did your best.)
Delivery Point Validation (DPV)
For applicable countries, we give you the DPV code which can then be used to create a Delivery Point Barcode. If you are doing bulk mailings and want to qualify for the USPS bulk discounts, you'll need the DPV code that is included in the barcode. Most address verification services provide this, but the USPS API doesn't.
No Hardware Costs
Because Smarty is a web-based service, there's no need for our customers to invest in expensive hardware to maintain large databases of postal service data. All you need is an Internet connection.
Less Time and Effort on Updating Data
If you try to handle all address processing internally, you'd have to update your databases monthly when the postal authorities release updated data. Using Smarty, the address verification and standardization is completed on our servers. So, we take care of all data updates for you, saving you the time and effort of keeping the data current.
More Data
We give back a lot of data about the address that helps you to correct the address if needed. Sure, it's nice to know if an address is deliverable, but if it's not, why isn't it? For example, an address can be valid (meaning it's a good address) and vacant at the same time. The USPS API returns basically a "yes/no" response. Compare their XML response versus our much more informative, lightweight JSON response.
Fast Turnaround Time
Many address validation services take anywhere from three days to two weeks to process submitted address lists. The technology that powers Smarty allows us to process addresses rapidly and immediately, thus allowing you to take care of your addresses in minutes or even seconds—not days. (Without even optimizing for speed, a list of 10,000 addresses takes only about 30 seconds.)
Reliable, Quality Service
Smarty has taken extensive measures to ensure that customers can depend on our services to be reliable. Our SLA guarantees uptime. We are continually looking for ways that our address matching can be improved and enhanced. We also pride ourselves in offering some of the most extensive customer service options available in the industry.
Accessible by Multiple Users
Organizations that have more than one employee managing their address data run into difficulties with desktop software. Because the services provided by Smarty are web-based, all employees at a company who need access to the address management services will be able to login and finish their assignments.
Secure Processing
Smarty understands the proprietary nature of addresses. That's why we have gone to extreme measures to ensure that the data being processed on our servers is protected by some of the most advanced technology available. Learn more about data security here.
Scalable Services
The address validation services offered by Smarty were created to be extremely scalable. Our servers automatically scale up if there's increased load. (Imagine a highway that automatically gets wider when there is a lot of traffic.) So whether you need to have 500 addresses or 100 million addresses validated, there is an affordable, fast solution available. We've successfully process BILLIONS of addresses for clients, and at break-neck speed too.
Address Components
We give back the various parts that make up the full address. This can be used if you need to further segment your mailing list or address database.
County Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)
For US addresses, we return the county that the address is located in as well as the specific FIPS Code for that county. This aids in gathering statistical information about an address.
Focus and Specialty
Our team is dedicated to providing expert customer service and API support for all our customers: from the mom-and-pop shops to nonprofit organizations and large corporations. Because the USPS API is free, there is no incentive to focus their efforts on maintaining an API, whereas that is our specialty. Guaranteed.
Expert Customer Service
We answer the phone quickly and are knowledgeable about international and USPS address verification. We can help you with just about any aspect of addresses, and if we're not the best match for you, we'll let you know. We frequently spend time finding out what services are offered by other companies just so that we can steer you in the right direction. If we can't help you, there's no reason we can't share as much knowledge as we have with you.
We Answer Hard Questions
Our customer service team and technical service staff are exceptional. We are constantly learning more about the complex system of addresses. We work hard to be experts so you don't have to. To test that, try an easy address like this elsewhere: (100 fake street Fake city, fake 12345) and then ask their customer service why it says the address is verified and deliverable. You will certainly come across addresses that you (and your customers) have questions about. We have or will find the answers for you.
Residential/Commercial Indicator (RDI)
For US addresses, we offer RDI data from the USPS that lets you know which addresses are residential or commercial. This is designed to assist you in providing more accurate shipping quotes to your customers.
Terms of Use
We make our address validation services available to anyone for any reason. More information. The USPS License Agreement only allows you to use their data for shipping usage. It states: "User agrees to use the USPS Web site, APIs and USPS data to facilitate USPS shipping transactions only. [27 Jan 2012]".
Open License
We have an open license that allows you to build our service into yours. Try to find another service that will let you do that. If you can even find one, check their pricing. You'll be back here pretty quickly.
Easy Pricing
We publish our pricing right on our website. You don't have to call for a quote or wait until business hours to get started. Some of our competitors require you to go through a painful and protracted "quote generation" process.
UNLIMITED Plans
For US addresses, we offer an unlimited subscription. That means that you don't have any upper limits on the number of US addresses you can process. That doesn't mean just unlimited up to a certain limit. It means we can process as many addresses as you throw at us—and we're happy to do it. Bring it on!
Adding New Data and Features
We are always improving our service such as giving geo-coordinates, and indicating residential/commercial status. As we find new ways to give you better data, we incorporate them into the existing system. There are never additional charges for more features.
Other "Free" APIs Come with a Catch
The free price of the USPS API is only for shipments being sent via premium services such as express and priority mail. For standard mailings (bulk rate, first class, etc.), it's not free. It's similar with the FedEx and UPS address validation services. Their Terms of Service state that their address validation API can only be used if you are then going to use their shipping service. That may or may not work for you.
With Smarty, free means free. You don't even have to enter a credit card when you sign up.