On 1 July 2026, Australia Post lifted its prices again. Parcel services went up by an average of 4.95 per cent, and Australia Post pointed to record operating costs as the reason.
An average of 4.95 per cent sounds survivable. The problem is that averages hide where the increase actually landed.
The increase is not evenly spread
The headline number is not the number most small senders will feel. MyPost Business pick-up services rose by 9.7 per cent — nearly double the average.
MyPost Business is the product built for small and growing senders. If you are running a brand from a garage, a spare room or a small unit, and a driver collects your parcels, you are in the group that copped the largest rise.
Some business owners have said publicly that they cannot absorb it. That is not drama. On thin margins, a per-parcel increase of a few per cent compounds across every order you ship, every month, without any corresponding rise in what your customer pays.
Two other changes that matter more than the percentage
Underpaid postage notices
Separately from the price rise, small businesses have reported receiving "underpaid postage" notices after parcels were already lodged, requiring an additional payment before they could keep shipping.
The operational problem here is not the amount. It is that the charge arrives after the sale is complete, after the customer has been quoted a shipping price, and after the margin on that order has been calculated. You cannot pass on a cost you did not know about.
This is a measurement problem, and it usually traces back to one thing: the weight or dimensions recorded against a parcel do not match what physically went out the door.
The United States suspension
Australia Post also suspended parcel deliveries to the United States. For brands with American customers, this removed the cheapest available channel. The alternatives — DHL, FedEx, UPS — have been reported at two to three times the cost.
If a meaningful share of your orders went to the US through Australia Post, this is a bigger event for your margin than the 4.95 per cent.
What this actually costs your brand
Percentages are hard to act on. Work it out per order instead.
Take your last full month. Divide your total postage spend by the number of parcels you shipped. That gives you your real average postage cost per order — the number that matters, and the one that moves when rates change, when your product mix shifts toward heavier items, or when more orders go to regional postcodes.
Then apply the increase to that figure rather than to the rate card. A brand shipping 300 parcels a month at an average of $9.50 was spending roughly $2,850. A 4.95 per cent rise adds about $141 a month. If those parcels go out via a pick-up service that rose 9.7 per cent, it is closer to $276.
Neither number is catastrophic on its own. Both are large enough to matter when you are deciding whether to raise your free-shipping threshold, absorb the difference, or change how you pack.
Three things you can control
Pack smaller. Postage is priced on weight and cubic size. A parcel that is 30 per cent air is paying for that air on every single order. Right-sizing your satchels and cartons is the fastest lever most brands have, and it does not require negotiating with anyone.
Check the weights in your system. If your recorded weights are wrong, you will keep receiving underpaid postage notices no matter what the rate card says. Weigh a sample of your actual outgoing parcels and compare them to what your platform has stored against each SKU.
Know your all-in cost per order, not your rate card. Rates can sit still while your cost per order climbs, because your order mix shifts — more multi-item orders, more oversized items, more returns as you grow. A rate change is visible. A mix change is not, unless you are tracking the number.
Where fulfilment fits into this
Outsourcing does not exempt you from postage increases. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Postage is a pass-through cost, and it rises for a fulfilment provider exactly as it rises for you.
What changes is who is watching the parts around it: whether parcels are packed to the smallest sensible size, whether recorded weights match reality, and whether someone notices when your cost per order starts drifting.
That is worth being honest about. If you are shipping fifty orders a month from your kitchen table, the postage increase is not a reason to outsource. If you are shipping several hundred and packing them yourself at night, the increase is one more line in a calculation that already had several.
The calculator shows the published Australian market ranges for each fulfilment line, including the ones that rarely appear in an advertised per-order price. It is a sanity check, not a quote — including against ours.
If you would rather understand the whole cost structure first, how fulfilment pricing works sets out every line that can appear on an invoice, and where the surprises usually come from.