The U.S Postal Service has recently proposed a postage rate increase of about 4.8% that will go into effect on July 12th, 2026. While technically this new rate still needs to be approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission before going into effect, based on past increases, this proposed hike will likely pass.
Due to the ongoing financial woes of the USPS, this is a continuation of a long-time trend of bi-annual postage increases.
While Schultz & Williams estimates based on anticipated postage increases when building future job budgets, there are other ways we work with our clients to offset these rising costs and protect their ROI:
Postal Promotions- Our production and account teams work to stay up to date with the latest postal promotions offered by the USPS to make sure we apply as many as we can to as many campaigns as possible. This can help save between 5-7% on total postage costs for each campaign they’re applied to. The ones we use the most frequently are:
- Informed delivery
- Integrated technology, such as adding a QR code to a letter, pointing to the donation page
- Tactile discount by changing an envelope to a grooved stock
- Sustainability by using recycled materials
Mail Schedule- knowing that most increases occur in July or January, our team has been proactively looking at schedules for campaigns that might see higher postage rates, like flats, to work to get these in the mail ahead of the next increase.
Smarter Segmentation- While being results-driven in building audience strategies has always been part of the S&W approach, and we continue to see a high response in mail and integrated multi-channel campaigns, it’s even more important to make sure we are being as targeted as possible with who we recommend investing in mailing vs. just digital outreach. We do this by:
- Making sure all data is clean and any invalid addresses or duplicate records are removed, along with running NCOA.
- Taking a close look at past response rates and net revenue by segment within a larger campaign and seeing where the lowest response or net is.
Package Formats– In addition to the above items we also look at the components of a package to see if there are ways we can save on print costs to stay in budget, to offset postage increases while not sacrificing the effectiveness of the campaign.
While these increases feel like a hit to already stretched budgets, we are here to help with ways to keep your campaign on schedule and on budget. If you have any questions or want to talk through any concerns, please reach out!
