UPS Simple Rate: Flat Rate Shipping Simplified

UPS Simple Rate charges a flat price based on package size instead of weight or distance. An extra-small package costs the same whether it goes across town or across the country. For heavy items going long distances, this can beat standard UPS Ground rates by 20 to 40 percent. For lightweight items going short distances, you would pay less with regular zone-based pricing. The trick is knowing when flat rate works in your favor and when it does not.

How Simple Rate Works

UPS Simple Rate uses five size tiers based on the longest side of your package. As long as the package fits within a tier's dimensions and weighs 50 pounds or less, you pay the flat rate for that tier regardless of actual weight or destination zone. You use your own packaging — unlike USPS flat-rate boxes, there are no special UPS-branded containers required.

The five tiers in 2026 are extra-small (packages up to 13 inches on the longest side), small (up to 16 inches), medium (up to 20 inches), large (up to 24 inches), and extra-large (up to 30 inches). Pricing for Ground service ranges from roughly 10 to 18 dollars across these tiers.

Simple Rate is available on UPS Ground, 3 Day Select, 2nd Day Air, and Next Day Air Saver. The flat rate increases with faster service levels, but the zone-free pricing applies across all of them. This makes Simple Rate particularly interesting for express shipments, where zone-based pricing creates large cost differences between nearby and distant destinations.

When Simple Rate Saves Money

The savings math is straightforward. Simple Rate eliminates zone-based pricing, so it saves the most money when you are shipping heavy packages to distant zones.

Consider a 15-pound item in a medium-sized box going from New York to Los Angeles (zone 8). Standard UPS Ground pricing for that shipment runs roughly 30 to 35 dollars with published rates. The Simple Rate medium tier costs about 14 to 15 dollars. That is a savings of 15 to 20 dollars on a single package — a massive difference.

Now consider the same 15-pound medium box going from New York to Philadelphia (zone 2). Standard Ground pricing might be 14 to 16 dollars. Simple Rate is still about 14 to 15 dollars. At short distances, the savings disappear because zone-based pricing for nearby zones is already low.

For lightweight items, Simple Rate can actually cost more than standard pricing. A one-pound item in an extra-small box going zone 2 via standard Ground might cost 9 to 10 dollars. The Simple Rate extra-small tier at about 10 dollars is comparable or slightly more expensive. You pay a premium for the flat-rate simplicity.

The sweet spot for Simple Rate is packages over five pounds in the medium to extra-large tiers shipping to zones 5 through 8. This is where the zone-free pricing provides the biggest advantage over weight-and-zone-based pricing.

Comparison with USPS Flat Rate

USPS Flat Rate and UPS Simple Rate solve the same problem — predictable pricing regardless of weight and distance — but they work differently.

USPS Flat Rate requires you to use USPS-provided boxes (Small, Medium, Large, and variations). The boxes are free, but the sizes are fixed. If your product does not fit in a USPS flat-rate box, you cannot use the service. USPS flat-rate pricing is generally lower than UPS Simple Rate for comparable sizes — a USPS flat-rate medium box costs about 16 dollars with commercial pricing versus 14 to 15 dollars for UPS Simple Rate medium.

UPS Simple Rate lets you use any box that fits within the size tier dimensions. This flexibility means you can use your own branded packaging, optimize box sizes for your products, and avoid the constraint of predefined box shapes.

For businesses where brand presentation matters — subscription boxes, premium products, custom packaging — UPS Simple Rate's flexibility is worth the price difference. For businesses where cost is the primary concern and products fit in USPS flat-rate boxes, USPS is typically cheaper.

How to Determine If Simple Rate Benefits You

The easiest approach is to compare rates side by side for your typical shipments. Pull your last month of shipping data and calculate what each shipment would have cost under Simple Rate versus your current zone-based rates.

Most shipping platforms, including atoship, support UPS Simple Rate alongside standard pricing and will automatically show you which option is cheaper for each shipment. This lets you use Simple Rate selectively — for the shipments where it saves money — rather than committing to flat-rate pricing for everything.

If your product line has consistent packaging sizes and your customer base is geographically dispersed (meaning you ship to a wide range of zones), Simple Rate is likely to save you money on a significant percentage of your shipments. If most of your orders go to nearby zones or your products are consistently lightweight, zone-based pricing will generally be cheaper.

The 50-pound weight limit is generous enough for most e-commerce products but excludes genuinely heavy items. If you sell products that routinely exceed 50 pounds, Simple Rate is not available for those shipments regardless of box size.