Starting July 12, 2026, USPS is rolling out new pricing across several mailing products and services, including Certified Mail and Return Receipt, the services at the core of most Accountable Mail workflows. It's part of the ongoing Delivering for America initiative, which has been focused on long-term financial sustainability and network modernization. We know rate adjustments aren't exactly exciting news, but if your organization sends Certified Mail regularly, this one is worth a closer look.
What's Changing?
The increases touch nearly every component of the Certified Mail process: postage, the Certified Mail fee, Return Receipt options, and Restricted Delivery. Here's the full picture:
| Service | Current Rate | July 12, 2026 |
| First-Class Letter (Metered) | $0.74 | $0.78 |
| Certified Mail Fee | $5.30 | $5.55 |
| Return Receipt (Green Card) | $4.40 | $4.65 |
| Electronic Return Receipt | $2.82 | $2.91 |
| Restricted Delivery | $8.40 | $8.80 |
Most of these are modest bumps, a few cents per piece and easy to absorb in isolation. But there's one number in that table worth paying attention to: the growing gap between the traditional Return Receipt (the physical Green Card) and Electronic Return Receipt. After July 12, that difference will be $1.74 per mailpiece.
$1.74 Doesn't Sound Like Much Until You Do the Math
We get it. $1.74 feels like a rounding error. But multiply it by your annual Certified Mail volume and the picture changes quickly. An organization sending 5,000 certified pieces per year pays about $8,700 more annually by sticking with Green Cards instead of switching to Electronic Return Receipt. At 10,000 pieces, that's $17,400. At 25,000 pieces, you're looking at $43,500 every year, just for the format of your proof of delivery.
And that's only counting the postage difference. It doesn't touch the hidden costs that come with paper: waiting 7 to 10 days for cards to find their way back through the mailstream, scanning them in, filing them somewhere you'll actually be able to find them, and then hunting them down months later when a compliance question surfaces or a dispute lands on your desk. Those costs are real, even if they never show up on a postage invoice.
The Proof Still Matters. The Paper Doesn't Have To.
Here's the thing: for many organizations, the Green Card has stuck around not because it's required, but simply because it's always been part of the process. What organizations need is proof. Delivery confirmation, recipient signatures, and documentation they can put their hands on quickly when it counts. The Green Card was just the tool that delivered that proof, and for a long time it was the only option available. That's changed.
Electronic Return Receipt provides all the same core information electronically, and when it's paired with the right platform, retrieval goes from a filing cabinet search to a few keystrokes. That's the problem ConfirmDelivery® was designed to solve.
How ConfirmDelivery® Makes the Switch Easy
ConfirmDelivery® is ACi's web-based platform for managing the entire Certified Mail process, from generating labels to receiving proof of delivery, without the manual forms, the waiting, or the paper chase. When a recipient signs for a piece, you'll receive their electronic signature via email within 24 hours of it uploading to the USPS network. Every record is searchable by recipient name, company, location, customer reference number, or USPS tracking number, so finding what you need during an audit, a legal review, or a routine customer inquiry takes seconds instead of a small excavation project.
There's no software to install, no fixed monthly fees, and no subscription to worry about. The hosted web portal works for small offices processing a handful of pieces a week and scales to high-volume operations running tens of thousands of pieces a day. Whether your team is sending service of process, HIPAA-required notices, benefit termination letters, tax notices, or compliance correspondence, ConfirmDelivery® keeps every delivery confirmed, documented, and ready to retrieve without the overhead that paper-based workflows quietly pile onto your team.
Looking Ahead
Postage rates move in one direction, and the cost gap between Green Cards and Electronic Return Receipt will keep widening. Every year an organization stays on paper, it's paying more in postage and more in staff time for a process that electronic delivery confirmation already handles better. July 12 is a natural inflection point. If you've been thinking about making the switch, there's no better time to act on it.
We'd love to show you what ConfirmDelivery® looks like in practice. Learn more on the ConfirmDelivery® page or reach out to the ACi team to schedule a quick informational webinar and we'll walk you through the platform and help you figure out what the savings look like at your specific volume.