Difference between UPS and USPS

There are countless companies available nowadays, and globalization and the internet have only serve to expand our options. It is natural that different organizations can be mistaken for each other, especially if they share similar names and functions. UPS and USPS are two such popularly mistaken organizations. We will distinguish UPS and USPS in this article.

UPS stands for United Parcel Service, Inc. and is a publicly traded company that offers logistics services, courier express, and freight forwarding. It was founded in 1907 and is one of the world’s largest companies specializing in package delivery and transportation/logistics services.

Meanwhile, USPS stands for the United States Postal Service. It is a government agency that was founded in 1775 as a federal entity. The USPS is also known as US Mail or “the postal service” and offers domestic mail delivery services. Its main source of income is the sale of postage stamps and its delivery services.

	UPS	USPS
Stands for	United Parcel Service	United States Postal Service
Definition	A large publicly-traded company specializing in logistics, freight forwarding and courier express services	A government agency that offers domestic mail delivery services
Classification	Publicly-traded company	Government agency
Year founded	1907	1775
Services	Logistics services, freight forwarding, courier express	Mail and shipping services, postage stamps sales
Delivery Time	2-3 business days	Up to two weeks
Costs	More affordable than FedEx, between $13-68 as of Dec. 2017	Significantly more affordable than FedEx and UPS, between $4-50 as of Jan. 2018
Package Regulations	Flexible package sizes except for those that are transferred to freight service	Stricter regulations for size and weight

Venn Diagram