A priority letter from Germany arrived showing only €1.25 in postage. It’s the best price I’ve seen. Going the other direction I have to pay €2.90.
So I suppose Germany is a good origin from which to send snail mail to the rest of Europe. Are there any services for that, whereby they receive a PDF by email or via web portal, print it, and mail it?
So, that sounds not bad, worth a try, if you find a way to do it.
Regarding “priority” stickers/prints:
Found a German Youtube channel that did some tests, sending letters with and without sticker to half a dozen destinations.
Took the same time for both variants to each destination (in one case the priority-stickered one even took a day longer…).
So, doesn’t seem to generally hurt, but probably not necessary.
Did they do that test domestically or internationally?
I suspect it does not matter for international mail because (apparently) /all/ international mail is priority. At least where I am, there is only a service variation for domestic mail. I’ve asked a few different post offices for non-priority Europe-bound stamps. They do not exist. We have a choice between priority stamps and regular for domestic. As the world suckers for the digital transformation and postal usage declines, there are fewer deliveries per week for the lower class mail. It was announced that deliveries have been reduced to like 3 or so times per week for non-priority mail and I expect it to worsen.
Regarding the test you mention, 6 mailings is a tiny sample. A non-priority envelope can perhaps get lucky if the timing is such that it reaches the local post office on a delivery day. Whereas priority /should/ go out for delivery ~5 or 6 days out of the week, IIUC.
I have started using the Event Timer app (in f-droid) and set up a button for priority mail and non-priority. So when any non-priority mail comes, I log it as non-priority. It’s too small of a dataset to be useful but perhaps in a few months I’ll see a pattern.