If your utility follows a July-to-June fiscal year, you’re probably thinking I’m referring to the new budget year. Actually, I’m not, but if you haven’t kept up with the news, it might negatively impact said budget!
So, what am I referring to? Another postage rate increase, of course! Postage rates are set to increase again on July 12. The cost of a first-class letter will increase by four cents, from $0.78 to $ 0.82, and the cost of a postcard will also increase by four cents, from $0.61 to $0.65.
The graph below shows the increase in postage rates for both first-class and postcards since 2012. Clicking on the graph will open an interactive version in Tableau Public.
Since 2012, first-class postage has increased by 82.2%, and postcard rates have more than doubled, rising by 103.1%. Tooltips that appear over each rate increase show the date and the amount postage increased to on that date. For postcards, the tooltip also shows the percentage of first-class postage that the postcard rate represents. During this period, postcards have increased from 71.1% of first-class to 79.3%. This is the highest percentage since 1974, when postcards were $.08 and a first-class stamp was $.10!
If there’s a positive note to all this, it’s that for the second consecutive year, we’ve had only one increase, unlike three of the four previous years.
Are you prepared?
Did you budget for this increase and the corresponding impact on mailing costs in your rates? As mailing costs continue to rise, encouraging more customers to switch to paperless or ebilling becomes an even higher priority.
Incentives
Some utilities offer incentives, such as bill credits, prize drawings, and giveaways, to encourage more customers to sign up for ebilling.
Other utilities have automatically enrolled all customers with an email address on file. This puts the responsibility on the customer to call and request to switch back to paper bills. One utility that took this approach told me very few customers requested to switch back to paper bills.
Paper bill fees
Last year, I wrote about utilities charging a paper bill fee for customers who insist on receiving a bill in the mail. If the questions I get during speaking engagements are any indication, I expect to see many more utilities adopt such a fee.
What has worked for you?
If you’ve had success in getting customers to switch from paper bills to ebilling, I’d love to hear how you did it. Whether you offered an incentive or adopted a fee, please let me know.
Are you considering outsourcing?
If you’ve considered outsourcing and wondered what it would cost to make the move, I have a calculator on my website that can help. The calculator will also let you know what percentage of your customers would need to opt in to ebilling to offset the cost of moving to outsourcing.
Is your business office operating as efficiently as possible?
If you’re unsure if your business office is as efficient as it could be, this is one of the things I can advise you on after completing a business review. Please give me a call at 919-673-4050 or email me at gary@utilityinformationpipeline.com for more information.
© 2026 Gary Sanders