The United States Postal Service (USPS) saw mail volume drop during July 2025 compared to July 2024, which was offset by jumps in postage charges. For July 2025, total volume was just more than 8.69 billion pieces, down from 9.04 billion a year earlier, a 3.9% drop. But operating revenue rose from $6.53 billion to just under $6.66 billion, a 1.9% increase fueled by rising postal costs.

The Postal Service does not break out nonprofit-related mail volume and revenue. While nonprofits use all categories of mail for various functions, nonprofits rely primarily on Marketing Mail for fundraising. Some nonprofits might use First Class Mail for responses with checks and in some cases outbound letters, and others use Periodicals class for their magazines.

While the USPS does not break out nonprofit volume on its monthly reports, it does issue annual volume reports for Nonprofit Marketing Mail, Marketing Flats and Parcels and Periodicals. For those categories, volume has been on an overall decline, with occasional upticks for each class.

Overall, aggregated nonprofit volume for the three classes has been dropping since reaching highs of 16.6 billion for both 2007 and 2008, with 2024 seeing its lowest level in at least 18 years, at 11.1 billion pieces, according to data supplied by Stephen Kearney, executive director of the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers.

These figures include substantial falloff since 2022, with the implementation of a new ratemaking system. In 2021, when shelter-in-space orders kept people home and turning to mail as a source of diversion, Nonprofit mail Marketing and Periodicals volume had increased to 12.8 billion pieces from 12.5 billion the previous year. But under the new ratemaking system, volume dropped to 12 billion pieces in 2022 and has declined by around half a billion pieces annually since.

“The most rapid rate of volume decline has occurred since the Postal Regulatory Commission put in place new rate-setting rules that allow the Postal Service to add onto the Consumer Price Index (CPI) cap installed by Congress in 2006, and USPS piled on by increasing the frequency of rate hikes to every six months,” Kearney wrote in an email to The NonProfit Times. “The PRC is currently reviewing those rules, and the Alliance is advocating a return to the CPI price cap once a year.”

According to Kearney, “The Postal Service is looking a gift horse in the mouth as it punishes its monopoly-captive mailers with frequent, excessive rate hikes, while chasing the elusive brass ring of competitive package growth. Nonprofits want to mail more, but they can’t afford to keep up with USPS price increases.”

Within these categories, Marketing Mail volume slipped from almost 4.6 billion pieces in July 2024 to slightly more than 4.5 billion pieces in July 2025 (a 1.9% drop), First Class Mail volume fell from 3.58 billion pieces to 3.36 billion (a 5.7% drop), and periodicals fell from just over 225 million pieces to 203.7 million pieces (a 9.5% drop).

Higher postal costs within each category offset some of the losses, with Marketing Mail revenue actually increasing by 1.9% from just under $1.24 billion in July 2024 to $1.26 billion (a 1.9% increase), First Class mail revenue ticking up from $2.1 billion in July 2024 to $2.12 billion in July 2025 (a 0.9% increase) while Periodicals revenue slid from $73.6 million a year ago to $72.4 million in July 2025 (a 1.7% drop).

Between July 2024 and July 2025, the USPS trimmed its operating expenses slightly, from $7.56 billion to $7.32 billion. But most of its expense reductions came from cuts to personnel compensation and benefits, which fell 5.5% from $5.87 billion to $5.55 billion. Transportation costs were mostly flat, with just a 0.4% reduction, and supplies and services and “other” expenses increasing by 17.6% and 6.1%, respectively.