Seventy-three cents to send a letter. For anyone managing a mailing budget, each increase lands as an unwelcome surprise — and the reasons behind it are more structural, and more interesting, than "everything costs more now."
Here is what actually drives postal pricing, and what a buyer can do about it.
The Postal Service funds itself
This is the fact that explains most of the rest. USPS does not run on tax revenue. It covers its costs from what it charges for postage and services.
So when costs rise — fuel, wages, vehicles, facilities — there is no appropriation to absorb them. The money comes from the price of a stamp, which is why postage tracks operating cost far more directly than most people assume.
Letter volume keeps falling while delivery points keep growing
This is the structural squeeze, and it is the heart of the problem.
First-Class letter volume has been declining for two decades as bills, statements and correspondence moved online. At the same time, the number of addresses the Postal Service is obliged to serve grows every year — new housing, new developments, new delivery points.
Fewer letters, spread across more stops. The fixed cost of reaching every address in the country is divided among a shrinking pile of mail, so the cost attributable to each piece rises even when nothing else changes.
Universal service is an obligation, not a business decision
USPS is required to deliver to every address in the United States at a uniform price. A letter to a dense city block and a letter to a remote rural route cost the same to send, though they cost very different amounts to deliver.
A private carrier can decline unprofitable routes. The Postal Service cannot. That obligation is the reason the network exists in the form it does, and it has to be funded from the same postage revenue as everything else.
The mix has shifted toward packages
Package volume has grown substantially as letter mail declined, and packages are a different operational animal — heavier, bulkier, requiring different sorting equipment, more vehicle space and more handling per item.
Retooling a network built for envelopes to move parcels efficiently is capital-intensive, and that investment shows up in pricing across all classes.
Best deals on Forever stamps
Rate changes go through a regulator
Postage prices are not set unilaterally. Proposed adjustments are reviewed by the Postal Regulatory Commission before taking effect.
For a buyer, that process is useful in a specific way: it is public, and it happens before the change does. By the time an increase reaches the news, it has usually been in the record for weeks. Watching the docket rather than the headlines turns a surprise into a scheduled line item.
Current figures across every class live in the USPS Notice 123 price list.
What a buyer can actually do
Three things, in descending order of value.
Buy ahead of adjustments. This is the big one, and it costs nothing. Forever stamps hold their value against future increases, so stock bought before a change carries the older price for as long as it lasts. An operation with predictable volume that buys buffer stock ahead of each adjustment simply pays less than one that buys as it goes.
Match the format to the mail. Overpaying by using three stamps where the correct denomination would do is a self-inflicted cost. Additional-ounce, two-ounce and non-machineable stamps exist precisely so you are not stacking Forever stamps to reach a total.
Buy on the secondary market, carefully. Genuine unused postage does trade below face value — overstock, liquidations, unused event inventory — and a discount of roughly 10–20% is what that sourcing supports.
The saving that is not one
Budget pressure is exactly when a 45% "liquidation" offer starts to look reasonable. It is worth being precise about why it is not.
Nothing in the legitimate supply chain produces that margin. Genuine stamps carry phosphor tagging that sorting equipment verifies on every piece, and untagged stock is pulled from the mail stream rather than delayed. A stopped mailing costs the re-mail, the delay, and whatever depended on the delivery — against which the postage saving is trivial.
| Risk factor | Verified specialist | Unvetted "liquidator" |
|---|---|---|
| UV profile | Correct phosphor spectrum | Flat / inert |
| Stock origin | Named and explainable | Unstated, sold as-is |
| Audit trail | Commercial invoice | Personal payment app |
Useful references
For fraud patterns, the USPS Office of Inspector General and the FTC. For the governing regulations, CFR Title 39. For the day something has to go out immediately, the USPS location finder.
Buy at full price from the USPS official store, or in bulk at a defensible discount from a specialist such as Forever Stamp Center.
The short version
Postage rises because a self-funded network has to reach a growing number of addresses with a shrinking volume of letters. That trend is not reversing. What you can control is when you buy — and buying ahead of announced increases is the one lever that works every time.
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Currently working at USPS in Chicago, he has more than 15 years of experience in bulk mailing and logistics. His columns focus on Forever Stamp trends, helping businesses and individuals make cost‑effective mailing decisions.
