Amazon Shipping published its 2026 peak season surcharges on Wednesday. Supply Chain Dive reported the schedule on September 3. The fees run October 25 through January 16, 2027, and the expensive window sits between November 22 and December 26.
Amazon Shipping is Amazon's ground parcel service, now open to any business rather than only Amazon sellers. Supply Chain Dive describes it as competing with UPS and FedEx on lower rates. For two years it has been the quiet alternative for brands who wanted out from under the big two. That pitch just got harder to make.
Put Amazon's new schedule next to the UPS schedule published August 27. Most of the numbers are the same to the cent.
Where the two carriers are identical
Amazon Shipping charges $8.75 for additional handling in the shoulder weeks and $11.90 at peak. UPS published $8.75 to $11.90 on August 27.
Amazon charges $96.25 and $117.50 on large packages. UPS published $96.25 to $117.50.
Amazon charges $530 and $590 on extra heavy packages. UPS published $530 to $590 for Over Maximum Limits.
Both carriers open the per-package demand surcharge on October 25 and close it on January 16.
Four matches, including the calendar. That is not two companies arriving at similar conclusions. That is a market where the accessorial is a settled price.
Where they split
Two differences remain, and both read in Amazon's favor.
UPS charges a per-package demand surcharge of $0.50 to $2.50 on Ground Residential and Ground Saver. Amazon charges a flat $0.50, rising to $0.75 in the peak window. On ordinary residential parcels, that gap is real money.
UPS also runs a high-volume surcharge of $0.50 to $9.35 against accounts billed for more than 20,000 packages in a single week, scaled to how far volume deviates from a baseline. Amazon has skipped a volume surcharge for the second year running, according to gain.consulting's September 3 breakdown.
The split inside the increase
Now compare Amazon's 2026 sheet to its own 2025 sheet. Intelligent Audit published last year's numbers on October 6, 2025: $0.40 per package in the shoulder weeks, $0.60 at peak, $8.25 additional handling, $90 large package, $485 extra heavy.
Run the percentages and a pattern shows up. Additional handling rose about 6% in the shoulder window and about 10% at peak. Large package rose about 7% and about 10%. Extra heavy rose about 9% in both windows. The per-package demand fee rose 25% in both windows.
We reported the same split at UPS on August 28, where handling and size fees rose roughly 6% to 10% while flat service-level charges rose roughly 22% to 25%.
Two carriers, one strategy. The fees you can engineer away went up a little. The fee that lands on every residential package went up 25%, roughly four times the shoulder-window increase on accessorials.
Here is the position worth taking. Carrier shopping no longer solves peak accessorials. When the two largest ground alternatives publish the same fees on the same calendar, switching carriers to dodge an additional handling charge is not a plan. Packaging discipline is.
What this means for your brand
Assume you ship 10,000 packages through the surcharge window and half land in the November 22 to December 26 peak. The per-package demand fee alone costs $6,250 on Amazon Shipping. Last year's rates on identical volume cost $5,000. You pay $1,250 more to ship the same number of boxes.
That fee is unavoidable. Every residential parcel carries it. The levers that still work sit elsewhere.
Get under the accessorial triggers. Additional handling and large package classifications turn on carton dimensions, weight, and packaging type. An $11.90 fee on 800 packages is $9,520. Right-sized cartons and correct packing remove that cost instead of negotiating it down. That is warehouse discipline, which is why kitting and assembly work belongs with people who see your dimensional data every day.
Cut zones, not carriers. The demand surcharge is a flat number in zone 2 and zone 8. The base rate underneath it is not. Shipping from Canal Winchester, Ohio reaches 90% of customers within two days by ground and puts 60% of the US and Canada population inside 600 miles. Same surcharge, smaller bill.
Price the spike honestly. Amazon skipping the volume surcharge matters most to the brand whose November runs four times its August. UPS prices that curve directly. If your volume shape is spiky, model that difference before committing peak volume to a single carrier. Our ecommerce fulfillment team plans around the spike rather than repricing after it.
October 25 is seven weeks out. If your peak math is still unsettled, get in touch while there is time to change the packaging, not just the budget.
FAQ
Is Amazon Shipping cheaper than UPS for peak season?
On accessorials, no. Every published accessorial matches UPS exactly for 2026. The difference is the per-package demand surcharge, where Amazon charges a flat $0.50 to $0.75 and UPS charges $0.50 to $2.50. Your negotiated base rates still decide the total bill.
When do the 2026 Amazon Shipping surcharges start?
October 25, 2026, running through January 16, 2027, with higher rates between November 22 and December 26. Amazon's FBA holiday fees run on a separate calendar, October 15 through January 14, which we covered in August.