Cheapest Stamps: Where to Buy US Postage for Less

The cheapest genuine US stamps cost their face value: 82 cents for a Forever stamp, or $16.40 for a book of 20, which is the price the USPS Postal Store listed in September 2026. The Postal Service itself never goes below that. Its law-enforcement arm, the US Postal Inspection Service, states that USPS does not sell stamps below face value.

The only legal discounts are small ones. The Inspection Service says approved sellers can include "big box" or warehouse retailers that give very small discounts on stamps through resale agreements with the Postal Service. ForeverStamps.com, an information site that does not sell stamps, likewise reports that Costco and Sam's Club often sell Forever stamps in bulk at a slight discount. We found no published per-stamp price for those packs, so work it out on the shelf: divide the pack price by the number of stamps and compare it with 82 cents.

Stamps are also sold at face value in many other shops. ForeverStamps.com lists grocery chains such as Kroger, Publix, Safeway and Albertsons, some Walmart Supercenters, and the pharmacies CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid.

Buying online costs more than buying in person. The USPS Postal Store charges a handling fee on every stamp and philatelic order: $2.10 on domestic orders up to $50 and $2.85 above $50.

What that does to the price per stamp:

• One book of 20 online: $16.40 + $2.10 = $18.50, or 92.5 cents a stamp
• One coil of 100 online: $82.00 + $2.85 = $84.85, or about 84.9 cents a stamp
• At a Post Office counter or a shop selling at face value: 82 cents a stamp

If you order online, order once in a larger quantity rather than several small orders, because the fee is charged per order, not per stamp.

A roll is not cheaper per stamp than a book. The Postal Store sells Forever stamps in books of 20, coils of 100, 3,000 and 10,000, and sheets, and they all cost 82 cents a stamp:

• Book of 20: $16.40
• Coil of 100: $82.00
• Coil of 10,000: $8,200.00 (the top of the price range listed for the U.S. Flag 2026 stamps)

Some designs come in smaller panes of 10 stamps rather than 20, still priced at 82 cents each. A lower pack price with fewer stamps in it is not a discount.

Most savings come from not overpaying rather than from cheaper stamps. The prices below are from USPS Notice 123, the official price list effective July 12, 2026.

• Send a postcard instead of a card in an envelope: 65 cents instead of 82 cents. A Forever stamp works on a postcard but overpays by 17 cents.
• Do not put two Forever stamps on a 2-ounce letter. That pays $1.64 for postage that costs $1.11. One Forever stamp plus a 29-cent additional-ounce stamp is exact; the Postal Store sold 29-cent School Bus additional-ounce stamps in September 2026.
• Avoid the square-envelope surcharge. Square, rigid or lumpy letters pay a 49-cent nonmachinable surcharge on top of the postage.

Printed postage is cheaper per letter: the metered price of a 1-ounce letter is 78 cents, 4 cents less than a stamp. But services that print it charge a subscription. Stamps.com listed its Basic plan at $14.99 a month, limited to 25 stamps, and its unlimited Professional plan at $29.99 a month (stamps.com, September 2026). At 4 cents saved per letter, the Professional plan pays for itself only above about 750 letters a month, so printed postage suits businesses, not households.

The cheapest postage is postage you already have. US stamps do not expire: Stamps.com, which sells printed postage, notes that USPS stamps do not lose their validity over time, and older stamps with a printed value, such as 29 or 50 cents, can be combined until they reach the current rate. A drawer of unused stamps from a relative is money off your mail.

Forever stamps bought before a price rise keep their full value after it. A Forever stamp bought for 78 cents before July 12, 2026 pays the 82-cent rate today. See Forever stamp price for every rise since 2007.

The Postal Service may refuse a stamp that is torn, heavily marked or cannot be identified as genuine (Stamps.com), so use clean, whole stamps.

Stamps sold far below face value are the most common way people end up with fake postage. The US Postal Inspection Service warns that counterfeit stamps are often sold in bulk at discounts of 20 to 50 percent, through social media marketplaces, third-party sellers on shopping sites and other websites. Its warning signs are a large markdown and a seller based outside the United States.

The cost of getting it wrong is higher than the saving. According to the Inspection Service, mail sent with counterfeit postage is treated as abandoned and can be opened and disposed of, and using counterfeit stamps can lead to action by the Inspection Service.

Safe sources are the Post Office, usps.com and what the Postal Service calls Approved Postal Providers. Our guide to spotting a fake stamp covers the physical checks.

By price per stamp, the low-value denominations are the cheapest: the Postal Store's range of stamps in September 2026 ran from 1 cent up to $33.25 for Priority Mail Express. Those small values exist to make up odd amounts of postage, not to mail anything on their own.

By what it mails, the cheapest useful stamp is the 65-cent postcard stamp. For a sealed letter it is the 82-cent Forever stamp, and for a letter abroad it is the $1.75 Global Forever stamp, sold at $17.50 for a book of 10.

If you collect stamps as well as use them, check before you stick an older stamp on an envelope: a small number are worth more to a collector than as postage. Photograph one and the app identifies it, which tells you whether it is an ordinary stamp to use up or one worth a closer look.

Research and drafting were assisted by AI, and every price and figure was checked against the sources listed below: the USPS Postal Store and price list, the US Postal Inspection Service, Stamps.com and ForeverStamps.com. The per-stamp figures for online orders and the break-even point for printed postage are our own arithmetic from those prices. Prices are those in effect on September 25, 2026.

A genuine postcard stamp costs 65 cents at the Postal Service, the retail postcard price from July 12, 2026 (USPS Notice 123). The Postal Store sold the Vibrant Leaves postcard design at $13.00 for 20 and $65.00 for a coil of 100 in September 2026; the price per stamp is the same in every format.

Stamps sold below that come from two very different places:

• Resellers of older genuine stamps. Some dealers sell lots of older US stamps below face value; buydiscountstamps.com, for example, listed lots at 10 to 50 percent off face in September 2026. Genuine older stamps are valid at their printed value (Stamps.com), so real ones work. The site states it is not affiliated with the USPS, and a listing cannot show you whether the stamps are genuine.
• Counterfeits. The Postal Inspection Service says the USPS never sells below face value and that fakes are usually offered at 20 to 50 percent off.

Those two ranges overlap, so the discount alone cannot tell you which you are buying. If you buy discount postage, buy from a seller you can identify, expect older mixed denominations rather than new Forever postcard stamps, and see our page on counterfeit postage stamps before paying.

The 65-cent price only applies to cards within the retail postcard size (USPS Notice 123):

• Length: 5 to 6 inches
• Height: 3.5 to 4.25 inches
• Thickness: 0.007 to 0.016 inch

A larger card, such as a 5 by 7 inch photo card, is charged as a letter at 82 cents, and a card in a square envelope is priced from $1.31, the letter price plus the 49-cent nonmachinable surcharge (USPS). Checking the size before you buy stamps saves more than any discount on postcard stamps would.

The only postcard prices below 65 cents in the USPS price list are for commercial mail. Presorted automation postcards start at 45.3 cents each (5-digit sort), 47.8 cents (3-digit) and 49.5 cents (mixed), with 50.1 cents for machinable presorted cards (USPS Notice 123, July 12, 2026). These need a mailing permit and a qualifying volume, so they suit businesses and organisations, not a few holiday cards.

Two things do not lower the price for a single card:

• Printed postage. Letters get a lower metered price (78 cents instead of 82), but single-piece postcards are 65 cents either way (Notice 123).
• Pre-stamped postal cards from the USPS cost the postage plus a fee: 8 cents per single card, 16 cents for a double reply card (Notice 123).