USPS October 4th, 2026 Rate INCREASES
Summary: mam98031 informed sellers about upcoming USPS rate increases starting October 4, 2026, with detailed price adjustments for different zones and weights. They shared that eBay will offer rates below USPS commercial pricing for many shipments. tsme35 and others discussed the impact of these increases, particularly on rural shipping, and shared strategies to mitigate costs. Various participants expressed frustration over frequent price hikes, with comparisons to other shipping carriers' increases. christworks shared successful pricing strategies to maintain sales despite shipping cost challenges during Q4. Overall, the discussion was centered around adapting to these changes to minimize business impact.
Yes, more increases. I just wanted to post this a little ahead of time in order that some seller may want to get on top of correcting listings as they may need to. On SUNDAY, October 4th [about a week away], there are more increases that will affect many sellers.
This link below is a link you should save. Here you can find updated information that you can download as needed.
https://pe.usps.com/PriceChange
Here is a link to USPS's announcement that summarizes the rate increases to come in a few days. Keep in mind that the rates on Ebay are the Commercial rates NOT Retail.
https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2026/0825-usps-announces-temporary-price-change-for-2026-holiday-shipping-season.htm
Commercial:
Priority Mail and USPS Ground Advantage: Zones 1-4
$0.40 increase for Zones 1-4, 0-3 lbs. and Cubic Tiers 1-3.
$0.65 increase for Zones 1-4, 4-10 lbs. and Cubic Tiers 4-5 (PM), 4-9 (GA).
$1.05 increase for Zones 1-4, 11-25 lbs. and Cubic Tier 10 (GA).
$3.15 increase for Zones 1-4, 26-70 lbs. and Oversized.
Priority Mail: Zones 5-9
$0.85 increase for Zones 5-9, 0-3 lbs. and Cubic Tiers 1-3.
$1.75 increase for Zones 5-9, 4-10 lbs. and Cubic Tiers 4-5.
$3.85 increase for Zones 5-9, 11-25 lbs.
$9.10 increase for Zones 5-9, 26-70 lbs.
Priority Mail Flat Rate:
$1.75 increase for Large Flat Rate Boxes.
$0.85 increase for all other Flat Rate Products.
USPS Ground Advantage: Zones 5-9
$0.55 increase for Zones 5-9, 0-3 lbs. and Cubic Tiers 1-3.
$1.05 increase for Zones 5-9, 4-10 lbs. and Cubic Tiers 4-9.
$1.75 increase for Zones 5-9, 11-25 lbs. and Cubic Tier 10.
$7.70 increase for Zones 5-9, 26-70 lbs. and Oversized.
Priority Mail Express: Zones 1-9
$1.40 increase for Zones 1-4, 0-3 lbs.
$2.35 increase for Zones 5-9, 0-3 lbs.
$2.10 increase for Zones 1-4, 4-10 lbs.
$5.55 increase for Zones 5-9, 4-10 lbs.
$4.90 increase for Zones 1-4, 11-25 lbs.
$10.50 increase for Zones 5-9, 11-25 lbs.
$12.55 increase for Zones 1-4, 26-70 lbs.
$18.20 increase for Zones 5-9, 26-70 lbs.
Priority Mail Express Flat Rate:
$2.35 increase for Flat Rate Envelopes.
Parcel Select: (all entries)
$0.40 increase for 0-3 lbs.
$0.50 increase for 4-10 lbs.
$0.80 increase for 11-25 lbs.
$2.35 increase for 26-70 lbs. and Oversized
The complete Postal Service price filings with prices for all products can be found on the PRC website under the Daily Listings section at prc.gov/dockets/daily. For the Shipping Services filing, see Docket No. CP2026-10. The Postal Service provides additional resources to assist customers regarding the price changes. These tools include price lists, downloadable price files and Federal Register Notices. This information will be available on the Postal Service’s Postal Explorer website at pe.usps.com/PriceChange/Index.
Good luck to everyone !!!!
UPDATE TO THIS THREAD: Ebay made an announcement regarding these increases and there was a bit of good news. The announcement is as follows:
2026 USPS Peak Season Rate Increases
Summary: The United States Postal Service is implementing temporary holiday shipping rate increases from October 4, 2026, to January 17, 2027. However, eBay Labels will offer rates below USPS commercial pricing for most shipments, with no increase for certain packages. eBay will automatically compare and apply cubic pricing to save money where applicable. Shipments to USPS-designated rural ZIP codes will incur commercial rates. eBay emphasizes its commitment to supporting sellers during the holiday season.
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The United States Postal Service has announced temporary holiday shipping price increases from October 4, 2026 through January 17, 2027. The good news: eBay Labels offers rates below USPS commercial pricing for most shipments. For more information, please visit USPS.
Priority Mail
No increase for packages up to 20 lbs. in Zones 1–8
No increase for Flat Rate packages
Ground Advantage
No increase for packages up to 20 lbs. in Zones 1–8
Cubic rates for tiers .30–1.0 will increase by $1.18-2.84 in zones 1-8, depending on the zone
No extra work needed: eBay automatically compares rates and applies cubic pricing when it saves you money
Shipments to USPS-designated rural ZIP codes will be charged at commercial rates.
We know how important shipping is for your business, particularly during the holidays. We’ll be working hand in hand with carriers and keeping our community updated throughout the season.
As always, thank you for selling on eBay.
The thing to note here is that Ebay was able to get the pricing on the site down a little bit. So it is not as bad as USPS's announcement above.
adamcartwright
·1 week agoAwesome.
Sept has already been my worst month in years.
mcdougle4248
·1 week agoMe, too.
christworks
·1 week agoI started making adjustments earlier during the week. I decided to take a different approach after testing a couple of marketing gimmick approaching to shipping lightweight items.
I went with .25 cents shipping back in August on my 12oz policy. I didn't take a loss, becaue at the same time I made the change, I raised the price of those items by $10 across the board. Yes, $10. Doing that clearly put the price of those items either at the very high end of the market or maybe even the highest listed in some cases. I had to do that to know whether I could cause a buyer's eyes to gauze over and get them to hit the buy button on an item the minute that they saw .25 cents shipping. I wanted them to think I was some stupid seller who made an error and had not realized it. This approach worked and sales for items in that policy went up month over month and year over year.
Starting on Labor Day I decided to remoe the .25 cents shipping and instead click the free shipping box inside that policy. Wowsers did I ever have a nearly 60% drop in views for items in that 12oz policy. Sales dropped by 42%. I wanted to stick with this through the end of September, but when the rate increase came down on the 19th, I decided to go ahead and work on changing things to line up with the October rate increase.
One more note on free shipping. To clarify, I do use free shipping on some media and it works well for that. I also do it for some ESE items. Outside of media and ESE, it sucks for me. That was the case a few years ago when all I offered was free shipping.
So now for my Q4 approach, rather than return to .25 cents shipping, I decided to try $4.99 for any item under 12oz. That price is good for everywhere but Zones 7 and 8, excluding LA and the Bay area. West coast shoppers pay $5.99. Because I have a high concentration of buyers in LA and the Bay area, put their price at $5.49. So far I have not adjusted the prices of my items back down from where I raised them in August. I wanted to test the waters to see if I need to do that. I will look at this closer at the end of next week. By then I'll have about 8 or 9 days worth of data to evaluate. I should also mention that I am now using Economy Shipping for lightweight items as a first choice. This way if the buyer is from a rural zip code, I can ship their items Economy which is a little cheaper most of the time. Non-rural zip codes get upgrades to Standard shipping in most cases.
I had moved 13oz to 5lb items into one policy when the price on 3lb-5lb packages came down over the summer. I pulled 1lb and 2lb items out of that policy. For one pound I'm doing $6.99 flat shipping, 2lbs is $8.99, and 3lbs-5lbs is $9.99. Each of those policies has a small surcharge for Zones 7 and 8. 6lb-10lb rate starts at $12.99, and goes up to $18.99 with tier increases starting with Zone 5.
All of the pricing and policies I've discussed apply to 1 cubic foot or smaller packages. I have a seperate policy for each of my standard oversize boxes and individual policies for the unique oversized stuff. I've not touched the prices on those things and probably won't. I have enough margin I can eat some shipping cost. My whole approach is not to get upset for freak out if a I lose a few dollars on shipping on an order because I generally make enough extra that at the end of the month I have enough shipping from buyers leftover that it covers supplies and eBay fees buyers paid on the shipping.
My outlook for Q4 is positive. People are buying on every platform I'm on. What I will say is that I think eBay sellers who stick with calculated shipping are going to hurt themselves, especially if they live on either coast. I think you will scare away buyers from zones further away the moment they see $10 shipping for a 5oz item.
Several platforms are trying to compete with Vinted and running shipping discounts. In fact, eBay seems to be the only one who isn't but they are on their sister site, Depop. It is up to eBay sellers to compete with the shipping discounts being offered elsewhere. I just don't think you can cleanly do that by using calculated shipping. The same people who refuse to rethink things and make adjustments will be here complaining all season long about no sales. Meanwhile, those of us who are willing to change it up and try something different, have a better chance at doing well over Q4.
sreu3058
·1 week agoThis is interesting.
My personal experience as well… I have been known to stop looking at an item/ click out
when I see a $7.00 or more shipping charge on a lower priced item.
mam98031
OP1 week agoThe price of an item / product has absolutely NOTHING to do with how much it will cost to ship it. It never has. Shipping is by destination, weight and size of the package. What is inside has nothing to do with setting the cost of shipping except when someone decides they want insurance on the package too.
sreu3058
·1 week agoYes, I am aware of that (of course)
Rather, it is a psychological response as a buyer.
That’s all I meant/ relaying my own experience.
mam98031
OP1 week agoMaybe so, but it is uninformed as it has nothing to do with the price of shipping. And believe it or not, many buyers do not make this distinction.
sreu3058
·1 week ago · EditedI do agree / or my opinion is that buyers (including myself) are now more focused on the ‘bottom line’ cost.
But, since there now seems to be such a wide swing with shipping costs from seller to seller, more than ever before, whether it a flat fee, calculated price, or free shipping, it can be a deterrent to look at a lower cost item and see the high shipping fee.
That’s all I’m saying. And I found Christwork’s testing very interesting.
P.S. Perhaps Amazon is to blame- yes, we pay that annual fee, but with every order (and there are a lot!) we think: Free Shipping!
mam98031
OP6 days agoYes and I agree with you. In time it will work out fine. Some sellers simply are not informed or don't stay informed on changes like this even though it is so critical to their ability to make a profit. But they will catch up or the sellers will likely not survive unless they already have huge profits built into the price of their product.
1786davycrockett
·1 week agoI'm not sure whether that's the straw that broke the camel's back, or the nail in the coffin -- or maybe the nail in the camel's coffin -- or all of the above.
A bad year is just about to get even worse.
Happy Holidays from USPS.
mam98031
OP1 week agoIt doesn't have to be. It isn't like this only applies to Ebay. These rate increases affect everyone that sells and ship stuff. Just be responsible in how much you raise pricing and buyers will get use to it and come back. They always have in the past and we have endured many price increases over the years. And many times sellers said the same thing as you are saying, but we are still here.
I'm sorry to hear you are having a bad year. Hopefully the upcoming Holiday Season and 2027 will be full of sales for you!!
mcdougle4248
·1 week ago · EditedI was sad already, now I am just depressed. Q4 will be bleak. It has been an amazing ride selling over 44,000 items here in 14 years.
shado-x
·1 week ago · EditedI thought Thanksgiving was the start of the USPS Holiday Season, someone over there at USPS Corporate thinks it is Halloween. Well boo-hoo to them.
squinkercat59
·1 week agoThere will probably be another increase in a month or so, the way things are going.
mam98031
OP1 week agoYes, next month as noted above. But normally USPS doesn't do another one during the Holiday season, however this has already been a completely unusual year of increases. Fingers crossed it doesn't happen.
mam98031
OP1 week ago@shado-x It has been October for over a decade now. However when they started this one, it was later in October and just kept moving forward. In the beginning it also ended BEFORE the new January rates go into effect, but now they just run into each other.
tsme35
·1 week agoWhat is that number 6 or 7 so far, oh and USPS zone 1-4 is going up $.40, 0-3lb
mam98031
OP1 week agoI know, it is crazy. For the past decade or so we have had raises in January, July and October. Octobers always labeled a temporary increase but then made permanent in January and sometimes a bit more. This year has been nuts. We had a raise in January, July, August and September. Now another coming next week. The only thing that helps a bit is that a couple of those increases were very limited to the packages affected by them [rural]. And media mail went down a few cents.
shire123
·1 week agoJust like all other prices particularly fuel prices. Remember USPS uses trucks to move mail. It's a never ending cycle.
tsme35
·1 week agoSo does UPS and they didn't jack rates 40-50%
shire123
·1 week ago@tsme35 Actually, I believe they have upped their rates significantly. They just don't announce it like the USPS.
Just generated a label for a box going from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania via UPS. The cost was a lot higher than what I have been used to. Note that I ship things via UPS almost daily so I think I have a pretty good idea of the general cost.
lakefor94
·1 week agoI have noticed the increases with UPS as well. eBay tends to gouge more on the UPS Ground shipping. I save significant money over on PirateShip on the UPS shipments, @shire123
tsme35
·1 week agosame here, I switched over back in April on my fishing rods, cheaper and I haven't had any overage charges, ebay labels I was getting an overage 1-2 times a month.
tsme35
·1 week agoActually, UPS increased their rates today. I only use UPS for my fishing rods, we get a pretty good discount because they don't charge a huge surcharge like the PO, but I did notice about a $3 increase this year.
shire123
·1 week ago@tsme35 One particular item I sell throughout the year is 1:18 scale Ultimate Solider WW2 airplanes. The shipping for them anywhere east of the Mississippi used to be about $22 for UPS. The one this weekend that I mentioned which was going to Pennsylvania was just over $32. So almost a 33% increase. (Note it is shipping on Monday so the heretofore mentioned increase hit this weekend.
tsme35
·1 week agobad is, I sell fishing stuff and rural are my people, that one hit me hard. Don't forget the 8% fuel surcharge in April
sfau
·1 week agoI hear ya - I just paid someone a 1.75 to take my item. Forgot to update shipping and went rural..... It is my own fault, but lesson learned.
tsme35
·1 week agoI signed up for a business account on USPS click n ship, I'm not being charged rural rates, its a pain to copy and paste the address but saving $1.50-$2.50, probably save $200 bucks this last month on shipping.
mam98031
OP1 week agoHow are YOU determining that the addresses are rural? Just curious.
tsme35
·1 week agomost lures I ship the postage will be between $5.50-$6, rural will be over $7 on ebay. OR when you go to print the label, say it weights 8 oz, change to 15 oz, if shipping stays the same amount, then it's rural. All my lures and 95% of my reels are under a lb, for anything over a lb, I still change the weight and it'll still figure if rural or not. You do have to set up a business account, if you have a regular USPS account, you can't upgrade, has to be a new account. Major down fall, its not integrated, so you have to copy and paste the address and add tracking number to order. The 1st week took a little bit to get use to, now its just the norm now. I also get points for my CC.
Pain is I have to account 3 shipping companies when I do monthly paperwork, I use Pirateship for my UPS, USPS for rural and then ebay lol. ebay wouldn't dispute overage for UPS so I switched, not an overage in 9 months, compared to 1-2 a month with ebay.