The USPS regularly raises rates. For any company mailing statements, documents, or any other transactional communication, it’s challenging to decrease these expenses. The USPS postage price will continue to increase, but you have options on how to combat it.
The July 2026 USPS Postage Price Increases
In July, new rates will be effective. Overall, the increase is an average of 4.8% and includes the following:
- Forever Stamps: $0.78 to $0.82
- Metered 1-oz letters: $0.74 to $0.78.
- Domestic postcards: $0.61 to $0.65.
- Certified Mail fee: $5.30 to $5.55
- International 1-oz letters: $1.70 to $1.75
While these rates have a nominal increase, it adds up, especially if you aren’t using postage optimization strategies.
What Are Postage Optimization Strategies?
Postage optimization strategies describe a set of tactics that transactional print and mail companies use to secure the best rates. It’s a multi-pronged approach that involves presorting, standardization, undeliverable mail reduction, and commingling.
Postage Optimization Tactics
Let’s review best practices to combat USPS postage price increases.
Presorting
Presorting is the central foundation of postage optimization. You may be currently using it, but likely not to the extent of commercial print and mail houses. The key is to group mailings by ZIP codes. USPS “rewards” customers who do this with better rates because it’s less work for them.
As a manual process, it’s overwhelming. For it to be very effective in reducing costs, you also need massive volume. Any internal process you may currently have cannot compete with using a third-party presorting service.
When applied correctly, you can ensure the best discounts. Since all letters are already sealed, you also meet any compliance requirements.
Standardization
Are your mailings all the same size? If not, you’ll have variable rate costs. Ideally, you want everything to fit in a #10 envelopes and weigh 3.5 oz or less. A big factor in this is paper weight.
Transactional print and mail companies are experts at this. Plus, you won’t need inserts anymore. Dynamic printing on each statement or letter is available to deliver any key messaging you would have included.
Undeliverable Mail
The costs of undeliverable mail are increasing your postage costs. Your customer files may not have the most up-to-date addresses and may have a high number of duplicates. These expenses are manageable with the right approach.
Address hygiene tools solve this problem. It uses technology and the USPS Intelligent Mail® (IMb) barcode. The solution scans your database and corrects bad addresses while deleting duplicates.
It’s an easy and effective way to reduce waste in the mailing process. Plus, you can be confident that customers are receiving communications.
Commingling
In addition to presorting, commingling further segments your mailings by ZIP code. It combines mails into a massive mail stream. This consolidation qualifies the letters for the deepest bulk rate discounts. As a plus, faster delivery is often an outcome.
Beyond these postage optimization options, you should also consider electronic delivery.
USPS Mailing Promotions
USPS has been offering postage rate discounts for incorporating integrated technologies and tactile mailing options in your mail. Working with a progressive commercial mailer will enable you to take advantage of these discounts to reduce postage costs
Emailing Transactional Communications
Many of your customers may already be paperless. Some part of your audience will always prefer a mailed document, but you can convert others by promoting the convenience and security of email.
There are many benefits to emailing transactional communications. It will reduce your overall postage costs, but there’s much more.
You’ll need a compliant email solution to manage this in line with regulations and security. When considering options, look for these benefits:
- Sender certification: This feature analyzes deliverability issues to ensure your emails always hit customers’ inboxes.
- Reputation monitoring: This functionality allows you to track signals impacting your sender reputation. You can then address these.
- List validation: You can decrease bounces from incorrect emails with this tool to determine if they are dead, wrong, or dangerous.
- Inbox placement: You can measure performance with these insights and prevent emails from going into spam folders.
- Email authentication: This capability monitors email authentication protocols, improving your reputation and deliverability.
Optimize Postage and Consider Complaint Emails to Reduce the Impact of USPS Price Increases
With all these strategies, you can abate the rate hikes coming in July. By outsourcing with professionals like PCI Group, you can lock in the most favorable rates and expand your email recipients with one partner.
Learn more about working with us today with a no-cost consultation.
