There is no single national PO Box price to quote, and any page that gives you one is guessing. USPS states plainly that prices differ depending on your location, and the rent you pay is set by three things: which of the five box sizes is available, whether you take a 3, 6 or 12 month term, and the fee group your Post Office belongs to. The number that matters more to anyone shipping is not the rent at all, because a plain PO Box address can only take USPS mail unless the holder has enrolled in Street Addressing. Our own part in this is narrow: SMKlog sells domestic parcel labels to guests, and rents no boxes, sells no mail services and ships nothing abroad.
Whether a courier can put a parcel in the box is the one that costs money to get wrong.
USPS prices boxes locally, which is why the answer changes between two Post Offices twenty minutes apart. Four variables do all the work, and once you know them the lookup takes about a minute.
| Variable | What USPS states |
|---|---|
| Box size | Most Post Offices have 5 PO Box sizes, depending on availability. Sizes range from extra small (XS, Size 1) to extra large (XL, Size 5). |
| Payment term | USPS offers 3 payment term options: 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months. |
| Location | USPS states that prices differ depending on your location, so there is no national figure to publish. |
| Fee group | Boxes sit in fee groups. Street Addressing is available exclusively through competitive PO Box service, fee groups 30 to 44, and requires a customer agreement (DMM 508.4.5.4). |
| How to get your own number | Search the specific Post Office on usps.com. Sizes and prices come back for that branch, and availability is per branch as well. |
The size ladder is worth thinking about before the price is. An extra small box takes a fistful of letters, and a seller receiving returns needs something at the other end of that range or a box that the counter will hold overflow for. Taking a small box to save money and then collecting parcels from the window every week is a false saving of both money and time.
This is the part that turns a mailbox question into a shipping question. USPS rules limit what may be put into a PO Box to mail and USPS notices, which means a plain box number is not a deliverable address for a courier. USPS also offers a way around it: with Street Addressing, the holder uses the Post Office street address plus their box number preceded by a hash, and can then receive packages from private carriers as long as those packages meet USPS mailing standards.
Here is what that costs you in practice. These are the five rates our checkout returned for one ordinary carton on one lane, with the deliverability question set against each.
| Carrier | Service | Price | Against a plain PO Box address |
|---|---|---|---|
| USPS | Ground Advantage | $14.02 | Delivered by USPS, so a box number is a valid destination |
| UPS | Ground Saver | $13.52 | Tendered to a private carrier, so a plain box number is not |
| UPS | Ground | $14.05 | Tendered to a private carrier, so a plain box number is not |
| FedEx | Ground Economy | $14.31 | Tendered to a private carrier, so a plain box number is not |
| UPS | 2nd Day Air | $21.96 | Tendered to a private carrier, so a plain box number is not |
On that lane the cheapest rate of the five was not the USPS one, which is the whole problem in a sentence. A destination that only USPS can reach removes four of the five options before you have compared anything. Two of those rows are economy products whose final mile can be handled in different ways, so rather than gamble on a hybrid service, ask the recipient for a street address or confirm they have Street Addressing enrolled. Our guide to shipping to a PO Box goes through the addressing formats in detail, and Street Addressing has a page of its own.
The usual alternative is a mailbox at a retail shipping store. Both are priced locally and neither publishes a national rate, so the comparison has to be made on what each one gives you rather than on a price tag.
| Question | USPS PO Box | The UPS Store mailbox |
|---|---|---|
| Address form | A box number, or the Post Office street address with your box number preceded by a hash where Street Addressing is available | The UPS Store says it can give a small business a real street address |
| Parcels from other carriers | USPS lists a delivery address for packages from other carriers including Amazon, DHL, FedEx and UPS, subject to availability and restrictions | The UPS Store says it accepts shipments from any carrier |
| Published price | USPS states prices differ depending on your location | No prices on the page. The disclaimer states products, services, prices and hours of operation may vary by location |
| Who runs it | USPS | Locations are independently owned and operated by franchisees of The UPS Store, Inc. |
Neither company will give you a number without naming a branch, so the honest method is the same for both: pick the two or three locations you would realistically visit, get a quote from each, and weigh the rent against how often you would otherwise be standing at a counter.
Box size is chosen once and lived with. A seller whose returns arrive in clusters after a holiday needs headroom, and the smallest box is a decision that shows up as a queue at the collection window every January.
USPS ties it to competitive PO Box service in fee groups 30 to 44 and requires a customer agreement, so it is a question to ask at the specific branch rather than an assumption to make. Without it, courier parcels have nowhere to go.
Every carrier can reach a street address, and only one can reach a bare box number. On the lane above that difference was the gap between five quotes and one, which is worth more over a year than any mailbox rent.
There is no single national price. USPS states that prices differ depending on your location, and the figure depends on which of the five box sizes you take and whether you pay for 3, 6 or 12 months. Searching your own Post Office on usps.com returns the sizes and prices for that branch.
Not to a plain box number. USPS rules limit what may be placed into a PO Box to mail and USPS notices, so a courier has no deliverable address. A holder enrolled in Street Addressing can receive packages from private carriers, provided those packages meet USPS mailing standards.
It lets a boxholder use the street address of their Post Office combined with their box number preceded by a hash, in place of the box number alone. USPS makes it available through competitive PO Box service in fee groups 30 to 44 and requires a customer agreement, so availability is a branch by branch question.
The UPS Store does not publish prices for it. Its own page carries a disclaimer that products, services, prices and hours of operation may vary by location, and each location is independently owned and operated by a franchisee, so a quote has to come from the branch you would use.