Mildly Infuriating

A lot of times of it's a very small, light item, there are contracts that allow for expedited shipping through government channels which might reduce cost which is why the faster option is less. Probably if it were a bigger item, the faster option would be either unavailable or way more expensive and the slower would be about the same price. Similar to how in the US the first class mail is very cheap.

Also, it's probably so expensive because expediting the customs process is mostly there just for rich people to skip the line kind of thing like in many other areas of society. There's almost always a backlog in customs combined with "antiterrorism" things like radiation detection, xray, pathogen detection, poison detection, etc., that is often done at random in large batches, but with expedited they often have to test every piece rather than rooms full of stuff. And routing is similar. They also can't wait to add your package to a larger batch of things when moving between various points along the way, so a lot of things are moved in smaller batches or direct courier. All of that makes it very expensive to move something very fast, no matter how small.

FedEx is a dogshit company. Their service is dogshit. They are dogshit.

Wait, it's a piece of paper, they can't send it through first class mail rather than using a shipping service? Can it not be folded to put in an envelope? USPS does this for $1.65 Even if it can't be folded, USPS does this for less than like $10

Did you check at a FedEx store to see if they had other unlisted rates? Web sites often cater to the lazy for the profits. That being said, I seem to recall an overnight FedEx document envelope across the US costing around $60, so it might not have any advantage.

Its based on the delivery location. It's like Alaska, some shit is cheaper to pay for air freight than ground service because the ground service is basically non-existent. Their shit is based on algorithms calculating tons of shop from and ship to locations calculating what hubs they pass thru and what means they're shipping via. This shit isn't designed to come out fucky but there are always going to be anomalies.

It's made exceptionally worse because it's heading toward Christmas. Most likely the plane on the 17th was already sold and filled, they're now sending a second plane which is not full and there's a premium to put stuff on it because it costs them more to fly it than your sheet of paper accounts for.

It's 2024 and we still need to ship a piece of paper. Fuckin embarrassing.

It could, theoretically, be like this on purpose, not only due to things like cargo space on specific planes, but also because this sort of pricing can have a psychological effect.

People don't really know what shipping is supposed to cost, so the way they decide whether a price is good is by comparing it to other prices.

90 seems like a lot, but if it's cheaper than the "economy" rate, people might be more inclined to purchase it and feel like they got a good deal.

Seems like it would be cheaper to just email them a recipe for LSD so they can make their own.

When Canada Post was still alive, this used to happen a lot when using their parcel service.

I would check all available options, because the ones you'd expect to be cheap often ended up being more expensive and take longer to get to the destination, and the cheap options don't give you perks like free parcel insurance.

OP, I also love how much you save by letting them deliver just a few hours later!

I actually just had to send someone a passport recently and had the 12p or the 3p (15h) options. I picked the more expensive 12p and the fucking thing didn’t even show up until 2:38p anyway. Very annoying since it was around $130

In the age of cryptography

I bet there is a hidden lower bound to the size of packages their Economy rate, so you are essentially paying the same rate for this Economy letter as you would for a small box. While the First Class rates have separate rates for letters vs. small boxes.

Facsimile?

Did you check DHL? I had to sent papers recently and DHL was a lot cheaper and it was the same delivery timing

And this is before they hit you with the ol' surprise brokerage fees.

I think they get it very well, it's economically advantageous for them that you pay more on your shipping.

I feel like this is what fax is for. Maybe I'm mistaken. Send it by fax and then send it by snail mail.