Postage & Stamp Guides

Most postage questions sound small — “Is one stamp enough for this card?” — but getting them wrong means a returned envelope or postage due at the worst time of year. This center explains how U.S. postage actually works for letters and cards: what a Forever stamp is and why it never loses value, how many stamps different mail pieces need, whether the old stamps in your drawer are still good, and how First-Class Mail moves. Everything here is written for ordinary senders, not collectors or bulk mailers.

The readers who land here usually arrive with a specific envelope in hand and one of a handful of questions. Is one stamp enough for this card — and what if it is square, thick, or heavier than usual? Are the stamps in my drawer from three price increases ago still worth anything? What does “additional ounce” mean, and when does it apply? How much does a letter to another country cost? And the underlying question behind all of them: how does the price of mailing a letter actually work, so I can figure out the next envelope myself? Each guide in this center answers one of those questions completely, and together they give you the whole system: one base rate, a charge for extra weight, a surcharge for unusual shapes, and a separate rate for anything leaving the country.

Start Here

If the word “Forever” on a stamp has ever puzzled you, start with What Is a Forever Stamp? A Complete Guide. It explains what Forever stamps are, how their value works when rates change, and when to use them — the foundation for every other guide in this center. Once that clicks, the counting guides below are simple arithmetic rather than guesswork.

How Many Stamps Do You Need?

The counting questions, answered by mail type:

• How Many Stamps Do I Need for a Letter? — letters by weight, with the additional-ounce rules explained. It walks through the full weight ladder so you can price any letter up to the 3.5-ounce maximum.
• How Many Stamps Do Christmas Cards Need? — standard cards, square cards, photo cards, and the exceptions that catch people out. If you only read one counting guide before mailing your cards, make it this one.

Choosing and Using Stamps

• Can You Use Old Forever Stamps? — yes, and this guide explains the rules for older stamps, mixed denominations, and stamps from past rate periods. It also covers what to do with small-denomination stamps that are not Forever stamps.
• How to Choose the Right Stamps for Holiday Cards — matching stamp type and denomination to your cards by weight, shape, and destination. It is the decision guide to read before you buy, not after you seal.
• How to Tell If Forever Stamps Are Real — the complete authentication guide: ink and microprinting, die-cut edges, phosphor tagging and the correct shortwave UV test, the deep-discount price trap, and the website red flags that expose counterfeit sellers.
• USPS First-Class Mail: A Practical Guide — what First-Class Mail is, what it covers, and how letters and cards travel through it. Understanding the service itself explains most of the pricing rules around it.

A Note on Rates

Postage prices change over time, which is exactly why the Forever stamp exists: a Forever stamp bought today covers the one-ounce letter rate whenever you use it, even after a price increase. The guides in this center explain the structure — what one stamp covers, when additional ounces or unusual shapes change the math — rather than anchoring everything to a single price that will age. Where a current price matters, we cite the official USPS rate information and note the date it was checked, so you can confirm the figure before a large mailing instead of trusting a stale number.

Who This Center Is For

Anyone who mails letters or cards and wants a straight answer before the envelope is sealed. If you are deciding which stamps to buy for the season, the Stamp Buying Guide covers where to buy and what to watch for, and the Holiday Stamp Designs center covers the festive designs themselves. For the physical rules your mail must satisfy — sizes, weights, and addressing formats — see USPS Mailing Rules.

Common Questions This Center Answers

• What exactly is a Forever stamp, and does it expire?
• Is one stamp enough for a Christmas card?
• Can I still use stamps I bought years ago?
• How does First-Class Mail work for letters and cards?

Quick Answers

How much is a Forever stamp worth right now? $0.82. Since July 12, 2026, the one-ounce First-Class letter rate has been $0.82, and a Forever stamp always pays exactly that rate — the day you bought it, and after any future price change as well.

My letter weighs 2 ounces. How many stamps does it need? Total postage is $1.11: the $0.82 first ounce plus $0.29 for the additional ounce. The clean way to pay it is one Forever stamp plus a 29-cent additional-ounce stamp; piling on a second Forever stamp works too, but it overpays. A 3-ounce letter is $1.40, and the heaviest letter, 3.5 ounces, is $1.69.

Does a postcard take a Forever stamp? It does not need one. Postcards mail at their own rate — $0.65 — so a postcard stamp is the right tool. A Forever stamp on a postcard is accepted, but you are spending $0.82 on a $0.65 job.

Is metered postage cheaper? Slightly, for businesses that print their own postage: a one-ounce metered letter costs $0.78 instead of $0.82. The difference is one reason offices use meters, but for a household stack of Christmas cards it does not change your math — Forever stamps remain the simplest option.

How to Use This Section

Start with the Forever stamp guide if any part of the system is fuzzy, then go straight to the counting guide that matches what you are mailing — letters or Christmas cards. When you are ready to buy, stamps are sold through the USPS official website and at post offices, and through retailers and online sellers including Amazon, Costco, theuspsstamps.com, foreverstampstore.com, USbulkstamps.com, and FlagStampShop.com; our Stamp Buying Guide walks through the options. One seasonal tip: buy stamps when you buy your cards, not the week you plan to mail. December post office lines are long, popular designs sell out, and a booklet bought in November is one less December errand.

Editor’s note from Atlanta — James Miller: If I had a dollar for every time someone in Atlanta has held up a booklet and asked me, “Are these still good?” — stamps bought two designs and one price increase ago, found in a junk drawer in Decatur or a desk in Sandy Springs — I could fund this year’s card list. The answer is always the same, and it is the best-designed feature of the Forever program: yes, they are worth the full current one-ounce rate, $0.82 today, no top-up math required. The second Atlanta question is storage, and it is a genuinely local one: our humid summers can make stamp booklets curl and stick if they live in a garage or a hot car. Keep booklets in a dry drawer indoors, and a booklet bought in November will behave perfectly in December. And a word from the counter years: when in doubt about a thick or square envelope, weigh one finished sample before you stamp the whole batch. Two minutes of certainty beats a mailbox full of postage-due surprises for the people you love.

Related Centers

• Holiday Stamp Designs — this year’s designs and how to pick one for each card.
• USPS Mailing Rules — the size and weight rules behind the postage math.
• Holiday Mailing Guides — putting postage into the full mailing process.