As many of us are aware, the cost of living sharply increased in 2022. Not for just gas and food, but many peripheral expenses as well. Such as the cost of raw materials, and labor – largely due to supply chain issues, and not enough staff to accommodate the increased service demand.

As a result, there have been changes made to the cost of shipping mail. To better understand the new mailing expenses, we suggest you continue reading.

Below you will find the up-to-date USPS pricing for envelopes at the Priority Flat Rate level. 

Your mail piece must adhere to the dimensions listed in the table below to qualify for the corresponding Shipping Price. To get an idea of what sorts of content fit inside each envelope, read column four (‘Great For…’)

Note: The Commercial Base price is the rate given to customers who purchase their postage online through a postage service provider. 

Below you will find the up-to-date USPS pricing for boxes at the Priority Flat Rate level. 

As you may have gathered from the previous section (How Much Does Flat Rate Shipping Cost Right Now?), the cost to ship your package depends on the dimensions of your package.

In the table in the previous section, the column titled ‘Free Supplies’ includes the USPS Flat Rate Shipping envelopes and boxes. If you do not have your own envelope or box, you can acquire these from your local post office.

USPS suggests using their envelopes and boxes as it is the surest way to ensure you’ll receive that rate. This is because the measurements of these boxes are the exact dimensions – as seen in the third column from the left – for each type of Priority Flat Rate Mail.

You do not, however, have to use these envelopes or boxes to receive the Flat Rate. You can use your own envelope or package if it fits within the dimensions listed above. 

We could tell you – if we had a crystal ball – but unfortunately, we cannot look into the future. 

What we can say with certainty is this: with the rise of inflation comes a rise in the price of goods and services. Flat Rate Shipping is a service. So naturally, its price – along with many other services this year – has increased.

To speculate if the price of Flat Rate shipping will increase is in line with speculating if inflation will increase above its current level. Or if USPS employees will decide to strike. We simply don’t know if either of these things will happen.   

With the exchange of goods and services moving to the online space, postal services have had to move unusually high volumes of mail. 

The major postal services are all unionized. If employee wages increase – then the price of Flat Rate shipping would likely follow suit.