USPS is raising rates on July 12, 2026 for the eighth time in five years, with some of the largest increases in history, and at a significantly higher pace than inflation. Over this five-year period, rates have increased a staggering 42-79%. This is compared to the previous five years, when the rates went up 0-21%.

Postal Advocate has been creating comparison charts that go over the changes in rates to show how it will affect budgets. The reason we do this is to provide a true comparison versus the overall average percentage increase that the USPS discloses. Based on the type of mail you send, the increase could be higher or lower. Also, when you look at the new rate charts provided by the USPS, they typically will not show the level of detail needed (previous and new rates, side by side) to see these differences.

Hopefully, this will help you budget by seeing the impact of the most common services that you use today. At the bottom of this article there is a link to an excel tool where you can plug in your mail volumes to see the impact on your organization.

At the time this article was written, these were the rates proposed by the USPS. There are typically minimal changes to the final rates going into effect after they are approved 45 days prior to the actual rate change.

Here is a link (https://postaladvocate.com/rate-change-tools/) to a simple chart of all the rates below.

First-Class Mail Single Piece: 3-7% Increase

The price of a stamped First-Class Mail Single Piece letter and Metered letter are seeing a $.04 increase to $0.82 and $0.78. There is still a $.04 savings for metered mail, making it five percent less than a postage stamp. A single-piece flat is increasing from $1.63 - $1.69. The rate for additional ounces does not change for letters at $.29, but flats see a $0-.02 increase based on the specific weight. The price for postcards rose to the highest levels at seven percent.

First-Class Mail Commercial: 2-8% Increase

Automation letters are going up five percent and Flats by two to seven percent. There is still the same credit for Seamless Acceptance of $.002 and for Full Service Intelligent Mail at $.005. The Sectional Center Facility (SCF) Pallet Discount went down from $.004 to $.003 for letters but stayed the same for flats at $.002.

With any increase, it becomes more important to look for ways to reduce costs. These are the options available:

·Use meters or online postage to save $.04 on letters.

·Consider presort services if you run over 500 pieces per day or have one-time mailings over 1,000 pieces.

·Automating your mailings in house or through third-party mail services to have drastic postage savings.

·Presort and automation levels go up to 3.5 ounces for the same base rate.

·Flats and postcards can have the same automation rates as letters.

·Consider moving generic content mail from First Class to Marketing Mail.

Marketing Mail Letter rates are increasing at approximately six to eight percent while Flats are going up at two to six percent. Nonprofit is seeing a slightly smaller increase in letters at four to eight percent, but higher with the flats at three to eight percent.

With heavy weight flats over 4 ounces, there is a per piece and per pound rate needed to calculate the total price. As you can see from the chart below, the per piece rate is going up two to nine percent and the per pound rate is going up by seven to eight percent. The biggest change is that these flats can now go up to 20 ounces, compared to the current limit of 16 ounces.

The best way to save money on Marketing Mail is to move mail closer to its final location utilizing destination entry level discounts. This area is seeing the biggest changes. The DSCF (Destination sectional center facility) savings have been increased by eight to 24%. There are still the $.003 SCF (Sectional Center Facility) Pallet, $.005 Full Service Intelligent Mail, and $.002 Seamless Acceptance discounts available.

Special Services rates are mostly in line with the five percent overall increase.

Additional Rate Change Items

Conclusion

Increases of 42-79% in five years are unheard of and impacting every organization. Mailers are going to need to look for savings strategies to help offset these changes. Our recommendation is to create visibility to all mailings and look for automation and commercial methods where applicable to reduce the cost and streamline production.

To budget for this increase, you need to look at the type of items you are sending, and the weight and zones that are most common, to truly estimate the impact. We have developed a budget calculator that you can download for free (https://postaladvocate.com/rate-change-tools/) that should help you better plan for this year. Some of the most popular USPS classes are going up at the highest rates but luckily there are ways to help mitigate this through automation and technology.

Adam Lewenberg, CMDSS, MDC, President/CEO of Postal Advocate Inc., runs the largest Mail Audit and Recovery firm in the United States and Canada. They manage the biggest mail software/equipment, postage and mail related services portfolio in the world. Their mission is to help organizations with multi-locations and mail streams reduce expenses, recover lost postage funds, and simplify visibility and oversight. Since 2011, they have helped their clients save an average of 74% and over $112 million on equipment, postage, shipping and outsourced mail service fees. He can be reached at adam.lewenberg@postaladvocate.com.

This article originally appeared in the May/June, 2026 issue of Mailing Systems Technology.