An electric letter opener (or paper slitter) can bring urgent mail to your attention immediately, while reducing the time, labor and paper cuts that it takes for one person to manually open piles of mail.
For small to mid-sized offices a small electric letter opener will open a standard business envelope with easy one-hand insertion. Companies with a larger mail flow will probably require a higher-end letter opener that will automatically feed a stack of envelopes, open each one with a quick slice, and then efficiently stack them in a receiving tray with little noise or mess.
On average, electric letter openers range in price from $100 to $1,700, depending on your office needs.
It is important when purchasing an electric letter opener to ask about the operating speed and duty cycle for that specific model. For example, you may hear that an electric opener has an operating speed of 10,000 envelopes per hour. Remember that the operating speed of your electric letter opener is much like the maximum speed of your car's motor: If you run an electric opener at its maximum speed for long periods of time, the motor will eventually burn out.
The duty cycle of an electric letter opener refers to the maximum number of envelopes that it should open per day or hour. It is important to keep in mind that the duty cycle will always be less than the operating speed.
