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If you’ve ever spent Dec. 23 standing in line to ship a last-minute Christmas gift, you know all about the crazy cost of sending packages by overnight mail. Sometimes the fees cost as much as the presents.
What you may not know is that there’s a huge difference in fees for the same service among the big three shippers – the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx and UPS.
We compared the cost of overnight shipping between New York and Los Angeles for the three largest shippers: UPS, the Postal Service and FedEx. Here are the results for an overnight letter, delivered by no later than the next afternoon:
The results were similar for shipping a 5-pound box:
We compare overnight shipping options every year, and each year the Postal Service is the winner. By a lot.
The costs rise steeply, of course, when you’re shipping heavy packages, so take that into account when you’re doing your holiday shopping for items you’ll mail.
USPS offers even cheaper rates if you go online, print your own label and request a pickup online. Cheapism.com’s survey of shipping costs included prices for 5-pound packages sent overnight from New York to Chicago. The results:
You can compare shipping prices at sites like Shipping Sidekick, ShipGooder and PostalAnnex.
There’s more you can do to cut your shipping costs for the holidays and throughout the year. Here are five tips:
This post originally appeared on Money Talks News.
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