New USPS Postal Rates on January 26
The United States Postal Service needs to remain solvent, so it regularly increases postage rates. They announced a 6% increase on December 24 that takes effect on January 26, and it’s upsetting printers and marketers who rely on direct mail.
For a lengthy, well reasoned response on behalf of printers, see Joe Webb’s story at WhatTheyThink. Joe thinks the USPS may be pricing itself out of business. Here’s a highlight:
“To oversimplify, if someone has a $100 budget for a mailing, and $80 is printing and $20 is postage, after an increase by the USPS, they can grab $23 while the printer has to find a way to get by with $77.”
Pitney Bowes has a helpful page that compares the new First Class rates with the old ones. They also have several stories that explain the new pricing for more complex services. Read them here.
And of course the USPS has a page with all the new prices here.
Jay Nelson is the editorial director of PlanetQuark.com, and the editor and publisher of Design Tools Monthly. He’s also the author of the QuarkXPress 8 and QuarkXPress 7 training titles at Lynda.com, as well as the training videos Quark includes in the box with QuarkXPress 7 . In addition, Jay writes regularly for Macworld and Photoshop User magazines and speaks at industry events.