Beyond GRIs: Surcharges and Other Costs Reshaping Carrier Pricing

It’s the general rate increase (GRI) season once again. Five years ago, GRIs were a big deal every time they were announced, because they constituted the totality of shipping rate increases you could expect for the next year.

However, that’s not true anymore. Brands latched on to GRIs and started negotiating carrier contracts with the assumption that those were the only big increases in shipping rates for the next 12 months, but carriers have inevitably added surcharges and additional fees sprinkled throughout the year to claw back profits in changing and challenging markets.

Five years ago, we didn’t have to worry so much about fuel surcharges, delivery area surcharges, dimensional surcharges, additional handling charges, demand surcharges, ACH payment fees, and a myriad of other costs.

Today, even though GRIs make a big splash when announced, you can no longer just focus on them when negotiating your carrier contracts, forecasting your shipping spend, and planning your parcel strategy.

Why a GRI doesn’t paint the full picture anymore

Every year, there’s always a rush to announce what the new carrier general rate increases are from the big carriers. But GRIs aren’t what they used to be.

Whereas historically a GRI was a once annual event when carriers updated their tariffs to impose rate increases, we’re seeing rate increases in new and creative ways on an almost bi-monthly basis.

Today, you might get a fuel surcharge in the summer, demand surcharges during peak, and carriers might even change their dimensional tables to redefine what an “oversized” package is.

That means it isn’t enough to just look at a general rate increase and then base your new year parcel strategy around that expected number. Instead, you need to look at shipping surcharges vs GRI, and how your shipping rates have increased across the entire year.

How to mitigate general rate increases (and all the other increases that came before it)

So to really prepare for carrier GRIs, you need to consider all of the other changes that carriers have implemented and prepare for what they might do in the future.

You also need to figure out the right time and methodology to mitigate those increases, so your bottom line isn’t caught unaware.

For example, one carrier might have announced a 5.9% GRI. However, if we know that one carrier made four adjustments to their fuel surcharge table in 2025, made a dimension billing adjustment, and moved their peak surcharge start date up prior to those GRIs, a flat 5.9% increase suddenly seems like a deal.

1) Calculate rate increases for yourself

Rather than taking a GRI as the only number you need to worry about, go all the way back to January of this year. These shipping rates will redate mid-year adjustments to help you capture all the rate manipulations throughout the year.

Run those shipping scenarios against the upcoming general rate increase to understand the full accumulation of shipping rate changes.

You may find that the GRI is 6%, but in reality your rates have increased 12% due to incremental changes in different spaces across the year.

And if you’re looking at a 12% increase in shipping rates, that will call for a different strategy or adjustment than if you only had to deal with a 6% increase.

2) Leverage the complete picture for your rate negotiations

Although you could negotiate with carriers around the GRIs alone, you’d be doing yourself and your business a disservice by not accounting for all of the other increases and additional charges you’ve picked up along the way.

So you need to now take the actual increase that your business is seeing, and bring that to your carrier partners. Show them how the rate increases have impacted your bottom line, and have a clear conversation around what is sustainable for your business–or not.

Read more: [Upcoming article on authentic carrier negotiation]

3) Diversify your carrier strategy

The next thing you’ll possibly need to do, if your carrier partners will not negotiate to a point that’s reasonable for your business, is to diversify your carriers. This may sound as easy as adding a new carrier to the mix, but it can actually get really complex depending on your situation.

The first challenge you’ll need to overcome is carriers often want to quote rates and discounts according to your entire sales volume. They want all of your business, or to charge you more for a smaller slice of the pie.

You’ll need all of the data you gathered around overall rate increases and sustainability to make your argument for your current carrier either to bring those costs down or allow for an alternative carrier mix without penalizing you with higher pricing.

Read more: [Upcoming article on carrier diversification]

Shipping surcharges vs GRI: Look beyond GRIs to understand the true cost of shipping for the upcoming year

Shipping price increases are just a fact of life. You can’t get away from them, but you can mitigate them with thorough planning and smart negotiation.

When we finally see the full list of GRIs to expect from various carriers, make your own calculations. Consider all of the rate increases you saw this year before and after the GRIs, and take them into account for your projections.

From there, decide whether you want to renegotiate with your current carrier(s), add new carriers to the mix, or do both to build extra padding and redundancy into your shipping operations.

If you want help doing this, or you’d like us to analyze your current carrier mix, contact iDrive Logistics for a consultation.