Direct mail budgets are about to get squeezed. The USPS postage increase in July 2026 will push a First-Class Forever stamp from $0.78 to $0.82 — part of a broader rate adjustment averaging roughly 5% across postage products. Here’s what’s changing:
- Forever Stamps: Rising 4 cents, from $0.78 to $0.82
- Metered Letters (1 oz.): Increasing from $0.74 to $0.78
- Domestic Postcards: Increasing from $0.61 to $0.65
Postalytics pricing will be updated to reflect the new rates — watch for a separate announcement in the next few weeks with the specifics for your account.
If you have campaigns planned for the second half of the year, the smartest thing you can do right now takes about two minutes.
But first: we’ve also shipped a significant Q2 platform update – new features & improvements, a batch of bug fixes, and a new product on the near horizon that a lot of you have been asking for. Here’s the full rundown.
Table of contents
What’s New in Postalytics: Q2 2026 Platform Update
New Feature: Rename Variable Data Column Headers
This one has been at the top of the most-requested feature list for a long time. Variable data columns previously carried generic labels like “VarField1” and “VarField2.” You can now assign meaningful custom names to each field, making your personalization setup significantly easier to manage, especially on complex campaigns with multiple data points.
Users can now go into any of the contact of a contact list to change Variable Field column names to more descriptive names. Once they update the column name within one contact, it will apply to the rest of the list.
Nine Platform Improvements Worth Knowing About
Several improvements shipped in this update that address real friction points in the platform. Here are the most impactful ones:
Campaign Creation: Empty List Validation. The campaign wizard now checks whether your contact list contains at least one valid, sendable address before letting you proceed. If it doesn’t, you’ll get a clear message and a direct link to fix the issue. This saves you from completing an entire wizard only to hit a wall at the end.
Campaign Delete: Clearer Guidance When Mail Is In-Flight. When you try to delete a campaign drop while mail is still within the cancellation window, the system now explains the difference between deleting a campaign and cancelling mail, and points you directly to the campaign dashboard where cancellation is available. This prevents an easy but costly mistake.
Flows Performance Dashboard: Response Rates Now Display Correctly. Individual campaign response rates within the Flows Performance Dashboard were displaying as 0.00%. They now show the correct calculated percentages.
Campaign Events Report: Sorted by Most Recent. The mail drop dropdown in the Campaign Events report now defaults to showing the most recent campaigns at the top. If you have a long campaign history, you’ll appreciate not having to scroll past years of old drops to find the one you’re looking for.
Agency Features:
– Agencies can now enable a custom public account registration page, accessible via the login screen. This is an opt-in feature configurable through agency settings.
– Agencies can now control which integrations are available within their white-label environment through a new settings page.
– Custom favicon support is now available via the logo settings page.
– Agency-applied margins to list purchases are now reflected consistently throughout the entire purchase flow, not only at checkout.
Webhooks: Custom Headers. Outbound webhooks from campaigns now support custom headers, giving developers and integration teams more flexibility in how they route and authenticate webhook payloads.
Automated File Campaigns: Data File Remapping. You can now update a running Automated File campaign with a new version of your data file, including remapping column assignments. This eliminates the need to rebuild a campaign from scratch when your file structure changes.
Saved Audience Count Accuracy. When editing a previously saved audience in the list purchase tool, count-refreshing now happens in real time, and the Sample, Save, and Buy buttons are disabled until the count is confirmed. If the count has changed since you last saved the audience, you’ll see a clear notification.
Change Plan Page: Default to Standard Class. The pricing page now defaults to Standard Class postage, which reflects what the overwhelming majority of Postalytics customers actually use.
Under the Hood: Bug Fixes in This Release
We shipped a few bug fixes in this release. Some of these were small rough edges; a few were meaningful issues affecting specific workflows. Rather than walk through every individual fix, here’s what we addressed at the category level:
– Agency and sub-account management: Several issues affecting how agencies navigate between client accounts, how credit expiration alerts identify the relevant sub-account, and how session state is maintained across multiple browser tabs have been resolved.
– Template editor: Element layering (Bring to Front / Send to Back), the image picker in the Variable Logic panel, and letter background image dimension validation are all working correctly.
– List purchase tools: Date filters for Birth Date, Home Purchase Date, and New Mover Database date ranges were not producing accurate results. All are fixed.
– Domain management: Multiple reliability issues in the domain purchase and renewal pipeline have been addressed, including DNS configuration, SSL provisioning, and activity feed logging.
– Campaign dashboard: Postage class labels, envelope preview, and event-based audience auto-filtering have all been corrected.
– HubSpot integration: HubSpot Premium features now activate immediately after upgrading without requiring a logout/login cycle.
If you encountered any of these issues previously, they should be resolved. If something is still not behaving as expected, reach out to our support team.
USPS Postage Rates Increase July 12 — Lock In Today’s Rates for 12 Months
The U.S. Postal Service has announced a postage price increase averaging 4.8%, effective July 12, 2026 (pending regulatory approval). The First-Class Forever stamp will increase from 78 cents to 82 cents. Postalytics per-piece pricing will be updated in line with the USPS increase, with detailed pricing schedules published in early June.
Here’s how to get ahead of it: buy Direct Mail Credits now.
Credits are valid for a full year from the date of purchase. That means any credits you load today can be used to send mail at today’s lower rates for the next 12 months — well past the July 12 increase date. If you have campaigns planned for the second half of 2026, this is the most practical thing you can do right now.
Buy Direct Mail Credits at Current Rates: https://app.postalytics.com/credits
For full details on the upcoming rate changes, see the USPS 2026 Postage Price Change FAQ: https://faq.usps.com/s/article/2026-Postage-Price-Change
Coming Soon: Automatically Send Direct Mail to Your Website Visitors
We’re in the final stages of development on a new product called Postalytics MailBack™ that will enable you to automatically trigger mail to anonymous website visitors. The concept is straightforward. When anonymous visitors land on your website (and meet the criteria you set up), you’ll be able to identify them and automatically trigger a targeted direct mail campaign through Postalytics Flows.
Early customer previews have generated real excitement, and we’re close to launch. Watch for announcements and webinars in the coming weeks.
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Keep Reading: New Direct Mail Guides from the Postalytics Team
The team has been publishing new articles that reflect what we’re learning as we work with customers of all different types. These blog posts cover a variety of topics relevant to Postalytics customers. Here are a few that should make your reading shortlist:
Direct Mail ROI: 2025–2026 Benchmarks, Stats & How to Maximize Returns
Direct Mail Testing – A Best Practices Guide for Modern Marketers
Automated Direct Mail in 2026: Always On, AI, and the Shift to Measurable Mail
Why Broadband Marketing Direct Mail Volume is Exploding at the Fastest Growing BSP’s
Where We’ve Been: May 2026 Conferences
May brought a series of conferences where the Postalytics team was able to spend time with customers, agencies & the USPS.
National Postal Forum — Phoenix
We attended the National Postal Forum in Phoenix, where we connected with customers and spent dedicated time with the USPS exploring the future of direct mail. It’s always energizing to sit across the table from the people who move billions of pieces of mail every year and talk about where the channel is heading.
NTCA Marketing & Sales Conference — Boston
We sponsored the NTCA Marketing & Sales Conference in Boston, hosted a Happy Hour alongside our HubSpot partners at Second Mile, and spent time with customers who are doing some genuinely impressive direct mail work in the broadband and telecom space.
Fiber Broadband Association FiberConnect — Orlando
We were also in Orlando for the annual FiberConnect conference to stay close to what’s happening in the Broadband Service Provider market. The BSP space continues to be one of the most active and opportunity-rich verticals we serve, and the conversations there were exactly the kind we want to be having.
As always, questions, feedback, or issues can go to our support team. We build what we build based on how you actually use the platform, and that’s not a line — it’s how the variable data column renaming feature just made it onto the roadmap and into your account.
Look for more updates soon. Our product roadmap is bursting with great new ideas!!
About the Author
Dennis Kelly
Dennis Kelly is CEO and co-founder of Postalytics, the leading direct mail automation platform for marketers to build, deploy and manage direct mail marketing campaigns. Postalytics is Dennis’ 6th startup. He has been involved in starting and growing early-stage technology ventures for over 30 years and has held senior management roles at a diverse set of large technology firms including Computer Associates, Palm Inc. and Achieve Healthcare Information Systems.