Cost of Stamps: A Complete Guide to Stamps and U.S. Postage Prices
Need to send a letter? USPS is raising the price of Forever stamps to 58 cents a piece in 2021…Since Forever stamps have been around — well, forever — many people find themselves wondering why the price of stamps went up in the first place. Now, the U.S. Postal Service has announced another increase in stamp prices starting in July 2022.
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USPS to raise cost of stamps to 60 cents each in July 2022
Earlier this month (April 2022), the USPS submitted to the Postal Regulatory Commission an increase in the price of Forever Stamps for a single piece of First-Class Mail to 60 cents each. This is an increase of 2 cents from their current price of 58 cents. USPS is also proposing to increase prices on its other mailing products, including metered letters, domestic postcards and international letters. We have listed below the planned price increases for Postal Service mailed products:
- Letters (1 oz) – depending on 60 cents from 58 cents
- Metered Letters (1 oz) – depending on 57 cents from 53 cents
- Letter Extra Ounce – depending on 24 cents from 20 cents
- Domestic postcard – depending on 44 cents from 40 cents
- international letter – depending on $1.40 From $1.30
How often does USPS raise the price of stamps?
USPS does not raise the price of First Class stamps every year; in fact, these cost increases actually occur much less often than USPS raises rates for its shipping services such as First Class Package and Priority Mail.In fact, the same year the USPS announced it would raise the price of stamps, the USPS raised the price of its shipping services three times in total. On the other hand, the cost of first-class stamps tends to stay at the same level for a few years or so before the USPS announces a price change.
Expert Tips: Mailing and Shipping completely describe two different beasts; in short, send by post means sending letters and documents, and Shipping Refers to the delivery of goods within a package. If you’re looking for some shipping help, feel free to check out our Shipping Basics archive and search for what you’re looking for!
Rising stamp prices lead to higher costs and inflation
USPS raised the price of stamps to address rising fuel, transportation and general operating costs. They also raised prices slightly to hedge against normal levels of inflation (although at the time of this article, inflation was at its highest level in decades).
While it adds a few cents per stamp, so it probably won’t make much of a difference to the person sending the letter, the Postal Service goes a long way in offsetting these costs considering the USPS processes and delivers more than 425 million pieces of mail every day. !When you do the math with this number, adding 2 cents to the cost of the First-Class stamp equates to about 2 cents more per day in First-Class Mail revenue $8,500,000.
Permanent stamps do not expire
While rising stamp costs are inevitable, you can do something about it! If rising mailing costs are an issue, the best way to hedge against it is to buy a roll of Forever Stamps and keep them handy. As their name suggests, Forever Stamps never expire. As long as the U.S. Postal Service is available, you can keep your Forever stamps and use them when you need to send a letter… no matter how much you paid for them.
