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What the July 2026 postal increase actually costs your paper

Put in one number off your P&L. This shows you the increase in dollars, and how many mailed copies you would have to move to an e-Edition just to get back to even.

USPS raised Periodicals rates 6.8% on average effective July 12, 2026. That is 9.3% within-county and 6.5% outside-county, the steepest increase of any class of mail. Marketing Mail rose 4.8% and First-Class stamps 4%.

Your paper

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The number that drives everything else. It is on your P&L, or add up twelve months of postal statements.
$
Mailed only. Skip racks, carriers and counter sales.
copies
issues
70%
Within-county went up 9.3%, outside-county 6.5%. Your mix decides your real number.
0%50%100%
Newsprint, ink, plates and press time, per mailed copy. Leave at zero to see postage savings only. Every converted subscriber saves this too.
$
25%
Drag to model a conversion target.
0%50%100%
The increase, per year
$0

Enter your annual postage spend to begin.

Break-even conversion
0%

Enter copies mailed and issues per year.

Postage before the increase
$0
Postage after the increase
$0
Your blended increase
0%
Postage per mailed copy, now
$0.00

At your conversion target

Enter copies mailed and issues per year.

Saved per year
$0
Net vs. what you paid last year
$0
Over five years
$0
Last year
$0
This year, no change
$0
This year, after conversion
$0

Annual mail cost.

Want these numbers for your paper, written up?

Send this to yourself and we will include the 2026 rate table, the three workshare discounts most community papers miss, and a one-page e-Edition migration checklist. No sales call unless you ask for one.

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Three things worth checking before you do anything else

  • The new workshare discounts. USPS added Periodicals discounts alongside this increase: carrier route basic $0.140 (85.4% passthrough), high density $0.037 (86%), saturation flats $0.065 (85.5%). If your mail is not presorted to capture these, part of the increase is avoidable without changing anything about your subscribers.
  • Your within-county share. It took the 9.3% hit, the steeper of the two. If you print out of the area, more of your run may be outside-county than you think, so it is worth confirming against a recent statement rather than assuming.
  • Who actually wants paper. Conversion is never forced. Most papers find a meaningful share of subscribers, often the ones already reading on a phone, will take an e-Edition happily if simply asked. The ones who will not were never going to.

What an e-Edition changes

Every mailed copy that becomes an e-Edition removes a postage line and a print line permanently, and it does not come back next July when rates move again. It also keeps the subscriber, which matters more than the savings. The alternative most papers reach for is raising subscription prices. That works once, and it costs you readers each time.

eTypeServices runs e-Editions, websites, mobile apps and archives for 1,000+ community publishers across 48 states and Canadian provinces. Month-to-month, no setup fees, and the average eType publisher has been with us eight years.

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Sources. Rate figures from MediaPost, the News/Media Alliance and the National Newspaper Association. Full tables are in Postal Regulatory Commission Docket R2026-1. This tool estimates from your own reported spend and mix and is not a substitute for your postal statements.