POSTAGE RATE HIKES COMING IN JULY 2025

Mailbag Wednesday! Short of offering real leadership or avail demonstrable business practices regarding organizational governance, the USPS decides to raise rates yet again in mid-2025.

If you were to read the official U.S. Postal Service press release in April 2025, you would know instantly that yet another price hike is on the way, with “USPS prices remain among the most affordable in the world.”

This forthcoming price increase is significant, with a proposed overall average 7.4% raise in single-piece First-Class postage rates. Here are some examples set to take place next month:

First-Class Stamped Letters (1 oz or less): 78 cents (up from 72 cents)
First-Class Metered Letters (1 oz or less): 74 cents (up from 69 cents)
First-Class Postcards: 62 cents (up from 56 cents)
International Cards or Letters (1 oz or less): $1.79 (up from $1.65)

Commercial Bulk Mail Letters (3.5 oz or less): Very approximate overall 10% increase
Non-Profit Bulk Mail Letters (3.5 oz or less): Very approximate overall 7.5% increase

There are many pricing tiers for Bulk Mail (ahem… we mean “Marketing Mail”), so your actual net increase will vary. However, if there is a takeaway here, it is this: the USPS increasingly offers less often local entry-level discounts for mail, taking away local advantages that the predominantly regional mailers had.

Additionally, price increases are going to make larger organizations more careful to whom they mail, likely putting a higher value on data quality and further diminishing the overall volumes of commercial and not-for-profit advertising and appeals.

The Non-Profit Alliance and the Keep Us Posted Coalition have both noted that such prices increases are well above national and adjusted inflation rates, have not done much to improve postal delivery services and do not actually address more fundamental issues surrounding the US Postal Service.

One potential sliver of good news: in July, the USPS has stated that some services will apparently go down in price, such as the cost of insurance for parcels. However, here’s our two cents: regarding insurance services specifically, this is more of an incentive program because fewer and fewer people use the insurance service (or want to use it, as our own real-life experiences of personal and reported disappointments would fill a small novel not worthy of reading).

Visit Us:
🌐 CRST.NET

🌐 CRSWEB.COM

📧 info@crst.net | ☎️ (845) 255-5722

Photo, Image & Content Credits: Cornerstone Services, Inc. 2013 (ref: USPS Buffalo NY Sorting Facility 2013)