USPS increased pricing across the board on July 1st, 2024 for shipping services offered to ShipStation users. On average, you should expect your shipping costs to go up by about $0.50 per shipments with USPS. Learn more about what these price increases look like in this article.
Tyler Douglas
Today, July 1st 2024, the United States Postal Service (USPS) is implementing a series of rate increases across various mailing and shipping services. These changes are set to impact ShipStation users significantly by raising the costs of shipping with USPS by an average of about $0.50 per shipment.
Below are the rate increases you should expect for the most popular services offered by USPS in ShipStation. At the end of the article, I offer some practical advice on how to best mitigate these rate increases in ShipStation.
USPS Ground Advantage, which encompasses the former USPS First Class Package and USPS Parcel Select Ground services, sees price hikes for packages under and over 1 pound. Some of these adjustments are as high as $2.11. On average, you should expect your Ground Advantage shipments to increase in price by about $0.50 each.
Rated Weight: 2 lbs
Zone: 2
June 30th, 2024 Price: $6.23
July 1st, 2024 Price: $6.76
Increase: $0.53 or 8.4%
Priority Mail will undergo an average increase of 5%, with some rates going up to $3.10 more. This service is often relied upon for its speed which offers 2-3 day delivery nationwide. Price increases will be levied on both flat rate packages and Priority Mail standard shipments.
Priority Mail Cubic® will see the largest increase, with an average jump of 10% and some rates going up to $2.97 more. This service, which prices packages based on their dimensions rather than weight, has been advantageous for businesses shipping small, heavy items. To learn more about cubic pricing, visit this blog post.
Rated Weight: 2 lbs
Zone: 6
Priority Mail Flat Rate Padded Envelope
June 30th, 2024 Price: $8.74
July 1st, 2024 Price: $8.95
Increase: $0.21 or 2.4%
Standard
June 30th, 2024 Price: $8.79
July 1st, 2024 Price: $9.18
Increase: $0.39 or 4.4%
You should expect to pay about $0.50 more per USPS shipment with this rate increase. If you’re shipping 10,000 orders a month, that’s a $5,000 hit to your bottom line!
To mitigate these effects, it's more important than ever to begin rate shopping between different carriers like DHL, UPS, and FedEx. Comparing rates and services can help find the most cost-effective shipping options and maintain competitive pricing.
Using services like DHL Ecommerce, UPS SurePost or Mail Innovations, and FedEx SmartPost can help lower costs significantly.
If you’re using automation rules, you should consider rebuilding them to bake in these rate changes. Alternatively, you can get the guaranteed lowest shipping rate for each order in ShipStation by integrating String. String will automatically update each order with the best shipping service from any of your carrier accounts. ShipStation users save an average of $1.07/shipment with String.
You can find more information about USPS price changes for ShipStation users here.