The Royal Mail April 2021 price changes have been announced. As well as increases to many domestic products, there are also increases to air carrier supplement prices for many countries.
“We are continuing to keep our prices as competitive as possible, while responding to the significant cost pressures this unique period that we are all working through has created. In particular, this is in response to the changes in international costs for conveyance, delivery, customs clearance and new data requirements.
We know how challenging this year has been for many companies and we have worked hard to keep these increases as small as possible.”
– Royal Mail
Royal Mail April 2021 Price changes
These price changes apply from the 1st of April 2021 and you’ll find full details of the increased costs under the Royal Mail April 2021 price changes on their website.
Domestic Parcel products and Air Carrier Supplement prices
Prices are changing for the following Domestic Parcel Products:
- Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed®
- Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed® Returns
- Royal Mail Signed For®
- Royal Mail 24® and Royal Mail 48® barcoded Large Letters
- Royal Mail 24® and Royal Mail 48® non barcoded Large Letters
- Royal Mail 24® and Royal Mail 48® barcoded Parcels
- Royal Mail 24® and Royal Mail 48® non barcoded Parcels
- Royal Mail Advertising Mail® Parcels
- Royal Mail Publishing Mail® Parcels
- Royal Mail Tracked Returns®
- Business Reply Standard and Freepost Standard parcels
- Freepost NAME parcels
- Parcels On Account
Air Carrier Supplements
Prices are also changing for Air Carrier Supplements from 1 April 2021, for a number of countries and the Rest of World Zone B, to reflect the increased prices Royal Mail is being charged due to reduced air capacity across the world. Royal Mail say that they continue to review these prices to reflect the changing air carrier costs. For details click here.
28 Responses
Is this increase just for business rates only?
I wasn’t aware of the Air Carrier Supplement, so how are we charged for it? I don’t see the charge within the price of items I have sent or is it charged separately on our invoices?
Tony, the Air Carriage Charge is an added onto the kilo rate so you won’t see this as a surcharge.
Yet more prices rises…the large Letter has gone up so much as of late going to be able to start using couriers.
Still they cannot scan a thing…
Yet Again Royal mail steer the ship towards the iceberg
When you consider just how mu h more mail and parcels the Post Office deals with – thus increasing their income – I am shocked about the raise in prices. I feel sick every time I post a parcel or letter overseas. The prices are outrageous.
Deliveries are getting worse. Where I live we now get deliveries once or twice a week
Our RM bag collector drives a rented ford transit every day as company van (Peugeot) is constantly broken parked at the mechanics. He loves the Ford as it’s an automatic & appears to be “top of the range.” Well, price increase or not, someone’s got to pay for that rented van (!)…
It would be good, if people’s mail/parcels, that are correctly!! Addressed where put through there letter boxes, and not other peoples!!! Our daughter, thanks to Royal Mail posting a parcel addressed correctly!! to her, posted it through a neighbours door, of which the house is currently unoccupied!! She has had an awful time trying to retrieve it! and now is having problems as item not suitable and company, will not refund, as to late, so thankyou Royal mail for inadequate service! Our letters are frequently posted in wrond doors as are our neighbours! Staff need to concentrate on our msol, Not All the flyer posters that get delivered by you!!
Again price’s changing, and definitely price will go up … but why no have more safe delivery service, I’m selling on ebay and every weeks parcels missing, parcels late,parcels damaged… ROYAL MAIL WORKERS HAVE NEW UNIFORMS so price’s going hight becouse so we will pay for new uniform??? Why can’t make a changes for sellers buyers and anyone who posting so guarantees so iteam will arrive
Their are Many things wrong with the Royal Mail the service should and could be Better….
It’s Only as efficient as the person walking down the path (even the wrong one)
Many Bad decisions made at board level and by senior manager’s at delivery office level….
As someone who has worked in the industry for over 30years it’s Sad to see Many dedicated hard working people made to suffer by the actions of others..
Price rises are not the answer..,
Better efficiency is…
Especially as we’ve made More money on parcels this year than ever…
Let’s pay the CEO any 5 million….
They can not deliver on time in the tn15 area so how come they are allowed to up the prices , we have mail delivered every other day first class 9 days 2nd a hope and a prayer..
We do see why you need to price rise
but the everyday customer is finding it
hard to come up with this extra money
we were shocked at the last rise of the
stamps,they are a lot of money…..don’t you remember the saying “less is more”…you would have more people using the mail if your prices were less,
so then you would bring in more money…..really sad your are having to do this….
Thank you Royal mail for the wonderful service we have received in these very difficult extreme Covid conditions. Yes sometimes our letter mail has been a little later but our parcels and many of them, have always arrived on time. Most of us have sat at home this past year but postman have kept going under extremely difficult circumstances. Yes they need recognition too. My wife sent a parcel next day delivery to the Isle of Man from the UK mainland which cost £8 and guess what, it arrived next morning. In comparison two Capperchino coffee’s will set you back about £6 stop moaning and pay up.
i keep hearing how the price rises are to cover extra costs etc…. that is fine, maybe they could drop some prices to cover our costs for lost or late parcels? Works both ways.
Saying that, DHL have put up prices several times recently, also stating increased costs. Hmmm…. yet they also state a huge increase in parcels. Isn’t there money made delivering parcels, so more parcels equals more income.
sadly this is more like a ‘milk the market’ excercise than anything else, they know that customers want online and sellers have no choice.
I wouldn’t mind the price increase if they provided a service they advertise and bloody scan items at point of delivery. Bunch of inadequate twats.
The days of an annual price increase are long gone. That’s something Ofcom may enforce for personal customers, but even there, the “special circumstances” excuse seems to get rolled out to enable more frequent changes. For business customers, Royal Mail have no such restriction.
I’ve tracked the changes; we use international, RM24/48 and Tracked 24/48. There’s been an increase in one or more of those services about every 2-3 months on a rolling carousel basis so that each one goes up 3 times a year. Never down, of course….
The last increases were in October ’20, and January ’21, with an additional “annual contract renewal” in November for the Tracked services.
It’s a shame companies like Hermes have such a poor reputation, I find their service is actually just as good (or bad) as Royal Mail, but buyer perception matters even though Amazon and eBay have educated them that delivery should be free.
46 page PDF to analyse and who knows how many ‘product groups’ – KISS
We moved our parcels away from RM at the end of December due to the price rises in January. They must be losing so much business to cheaper and better alternatives. All they will have left is LL and letters.
RM rarely compensate for damaged or lost items. At the prices they charge they should offer full tracking and pay out full compensation.
Hi sir and man
I am wait for my tricycle very heavy box DCC controller overhead for railway
Sign Richard Sangster
Time for us to look again at other carriers too I’m afraid. The price rises are a kick in the teeth when they come on the back of increasing numbers of ‘lost’ items and parcels being scanned but not delivered, plus slow, slow delivery. I’ve always stood by Royal Mail but this is one step too far for me
For those of us who still buy stamps what will the cost of a large letter signed for be?
Didn’t you know that we, internal users, finance all penny deliveries from China?
“We are continuing to keep our prices as competitive as possible….” so make Chinese RM users pay for it. It’s a joke.
The prices went up anyway… I can’t believe this. I refused to use other courier services but its time to move to another service provider
I realise this article is aimed at business users, but it would have been good to highlight that early on.
For smaller users and especially those who don’t already benefit from heavy discounts it’s worth pointing out that there are no changes to the headline domestic and international rates. These of course increased in January and we pay much more than the cheap rates quoted here.
Royal mail are a disgrace. 3yrs I’ve been in my property and yet the postman still doesn’t seem to believe I live here as only deliver my partners post here and mine 2 buildings down.
Parcels are a joke they’re worse than hermes for parcels
I’ve given up getting next day delivery when it still takes 2wks to move from my local post office.
I watch the tracking and its like the post stops once it gets to my local sorting office and for this reason I’ve missed hospital appointments, had copies of medical records go missing. Were now February and I’m now getting my post from November,
I wont be using Royal Mail or Ebay again after the past years price increases on small items. Bulk posting and Amazon FBA is the much better option for me now.
It’s like RM and the government WANT businesses to fail.
Apart from Amazon and a select few others, yes. The government are gradually “nudging” everyone else out of business. Not surprising when companies like Amazon have a bigger GDP than most entire countries, and with that comes a lot of clout. How I laugh when people applaud the “Amazon tax”…which will have the opposite effect of what they expect. It’s just a tax on everyone except Amazon.