USPS Priority Mail Rates 2023

The USPS offers great rates for shipping letters, parcels and packages anywhere in the US. Their Priority Mail service is fast, efficient and fairly priced.

Priority Mail rates rose slightly in January this year, so make sure you’re aware of the new prices.

Here’s everything you need to know about USPS Priority Mail rates in 2023.

Priority Mail Commercial Rates

We’ve summarized the costs for some common mail weights when shipping to Zones 1-9:

Cost of USPS Priority Mail Express

When you need your mail to arrive even faster, you need the USPS Priority Mail Express service. Paying a little extra means your clients will get their important mail the next day or within two days.

To keep things simple, USPS Flat Rate pricing delivers speedy shipping to any state:

• Flat Rate Envelope: $24.90 Commercial Pricing (12 1/2″ x 9 1/2″) handy for passports, documents and manuscripts
• Legal Flat Rate Envelope: $25.15 Commercial Pricing (15″ x 9 1/2″) ideal for any legal documents.
• Padded Flat Rate Envelope: $25.35 Commercial Pricing (12 1/2″ x 9 1/2″) perfect for clothing, books or small accessories.

What Factors Affect USPS Priority Mail Rates?

Three factors affect Priority Mail prices:

• Distance
• Weight
• Box/envelope type

Let’s take a closer look at each one:

Shipping Zone

Put simply, the greater the distance your mail has to go, the more it costs to get it there. The USPS splits pricing across nine ‘zones’. Zone 1 covers areas beyond your zip code but within a 50 mile radius, while Zone 8 covers distances of 1801 miles and over (coast-to-coast shipping, essentially). Zone 9 is for Freely Associated States.

Zones aren’t fixed, are defined by the distance between the sender's and receiver's locations. So, if you live in Washington, you’ll pay Zone 1/2 prices to ship to customers in neighboring Oregon, whereas a business based in New York would pay Zone 7/8 prices to ship to the same customers.

ZoneDistance

Box/Envelope Type

The USPS is happy to ship letters and boxes with both standard and non-standard dimensions, charging a premium on heavier packages.

But if all your mail tends to be of a similar size, you could save a ton of money if you use USPS’s Flat Rate boxes and envelopes. For a fixed fee, you can ship as much weight as you like (up to 70 lbs) for no extra cost. The trade-off is that your mail has to be small enough to fit inside USPS’s special Flat Rate boxes and envelopes, but it's usually more than enough for most companies’ mailing needs.

Weight

The maximum weight allowed for letters and packages sent by Priority Mail is 70 lb. If you’re using Flat Rate packaging (discussed above), you’ll pay the same whether you’re sending 1 lb or 70 lb. But if you’re using your own packaging, or if your packages exceed the maximum dimensions for Flat Rate shipping, then you’ll pay an additional amount for every extra pound of weight you send.

Next Steps

If speedy shipping is a priority for you, you can’t go far wrong with Priority Mail. The USPS even throws in free Flat Rate packaging as an extra incentive to use their mailing services.

A good way to cut down time spent sorting and weighing your mail is by leasing a postage meter. Postage meters automatically calculate mailing costs, and save your staff valuable time.

To find out more, you can request quotes from top postage meter suppliers.