Shipping, Packaging, and Handling Costs
a.k.a. The Mysterious World of the US Postal Service
The following list breaks down the costs of shipping.
Envelopes are 30 - 40 cents each.
"Handling" always seemed silly to me as a consumer, but now that I see Mom walking each package to the post office, or driving the big orders to UPS, I see the reason to charge for it. So I made it $1.00, plus or minus a little bit to get round numbers.
Media mail in the U.S. = $2.58.
Priority mail to Hawaii or Alaska = $8.25 (includes envelope).
We had been shipping to Canada with Priority Mail (now up to $9.95), until we discovered something dubiously called "First Class International." Mom's post office tried to pretend they didn't have it, but my post office clearly did and we rightly figured all post offices in the U.S. have the same services available. We are trying it out since it is only $5.51 and supposedly just as fast as Priority.
International Priority Mail = $11.95 (includes envelope). In this case, First Class International is not any cheaper ($11.75 but we buy the envelope) so we're sticking with Priority.