Judging by the explosion in my inbox, the new Royal Mail Surcharges that have just been announced aren’t being received very well. Not only is there an existing fuel surcharge, but retailers have just been informed of a new Green Surcharge and a new Peak surcharge which will impact their mail prices.
Consumers (anyone that pays online or at the Post Office) won’t be impacted. But if you have a business account this is going to hit you hard.
Put simply, this Christmas you’ll be paying a new 2p Green Surcharge, plus a new 10p Peak Surcharge, plus an additional 8% Fuel Surcharge for every parcel you send.
Fuel Surcharge
We’ve become used to the Royal Mail Fuel Surcharge, which is applied on the product price after any discounts or commissions, and before VAT. They aim to keep this surcharge lower than other delivery companies.
Currently a fuel surcharge of 8.0% is applied to:
- Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed® by 9am, 1pm and end of the day Sunday
- Royal Mail Tracked 24® and Royal Mail Tracked 48®
- Royal Mail 24® and Royal Mail 48®
- Special Delivery Guaranteed Returns
- Royal Mail Tracked Returns® and Mail Order Return
Green Surcharge
The Green Surcharge applies to some products for Royal Mail account customers – you are basically being co-opted into making contributions towards funding decarbonisation measures in the Royal Mail network at a rate of 2p per item. The Green Surcharge will be introduced on or after the 6th of November 2023.
You might be forgiven in questioning why this is being levied as a surcharge instead of just jacking up prices by 2p per item. It’s worth noting that as a surcharge Royal Mail can hike the rate any time they like with 30 days notice.
The Green Surcharge is applied on the product price after any discounts or commissions or other surcharges, and before VAT for:
- Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed® by 9am, 1pm and end of the day Sunday
- Royal Mail Tracked 24® and Royal Mail Tracked 48®
- Royal Mail 24® and Royal Mail 48®
- Special Delivery Guaranteed Returns
- Royal Mail Tracked Returns®
Peak Surcharge
The Peak Surcharge is effective across Royal Mail’s busiest time of year when they scale-up their network at additional cost. In previous years, Royal Mail have always swallowed these costs… after all the more parcels you send the more money they make, but from this year onwards they appear to want penalise you for being busy over the Black Friday and Christmas period!
The Peak Surcharge is applied on the product price after any discounts or commissions or other surcharges, and before VAT and will start to be charged from the 20th of November 2023 and be effective through to the 7th of January 2024:
| Products | Parcel | Large Letter |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed® by 9am, 1pm and end of the day Sunday | £0.10 | £0.10 |
| Royal Mail Tracked 24® and Royal Mail Tracked48® | £0.10 | £0.05 |
| Royal Mail 24® and Royal Mail 48® | £0.10 | £0.05 |
| Special Delivery Guaranteed Returns | £0.10 | £0.10 |
| Royal Mail Tracked Returns® | £0.10 | £0.10 |
10 Responses
Place your bets on strikes over Christmas
“We aim to keep this surcharge lower than other delivery companies”
Tell us more about how ChannelX aims to keep the surcharge lower.
Surely you don’t just copy and paste press releases?
Customers who pay online or at the post office are impacted buy another price increase if buying Large Letter Products
Prices are rising from £1.15 to £1.55 for a 100 gram large letter and £1.85 to £2.30 for a 250 gram Large Letter.
Also first class letter postage rising by 15p to £1.25
Got the 6 monthly price rises email the other day.
Yet more price rises for what is a very poor service.
I am even many video games with Evri these days. You go to the post office to drop mail and it is practically empty. You then go to the parcelshop and it is overflowing.
Ship your items in bulk to China and back, the service is cheaper and quicker 🤣🤣🤣🤣💯%
Business customer will now pay more than the public for a 2nd Class stamp. This will cost 75p but if you use BPL VAT Exempt through a Royal Mail business account it will cost 4p more (79p). How do Royal Mail justify charging a business that may send out 1000’s of letters more than a normal person that just posts 1 letter?
We’ve struggled to find the cash to pay for the £215k stock surplus that we were left with last year thanks to the the strikes. This just adds insult to injury.
Disgraceful! I currently use Royal Maill OBA and I’ll have to do the math, but it is extremely close as to wether it may be cheaper for me to take my goods to the post office and manually ship eberything over the counter. I live in a rural area and the locals will be delighted with me in there holding up the queue everyday. It’s bonkers that there is hardly any difference in sending thousands of items through a business account and granny Smith posting one package in her local post office.
Does anyone know if there’s a cheaper alternative for sending large letters than Royal Mail OBA?
Can anyone post a chart of the new OBA BPL prices, or does anyone have a link to the new OBA BPL prices? I can’t figure out which ones they are in the Royal Mail document.