After holding steady for five years, we are making a few changes to our delivery pricing structure. No one likes to hear about pricing changes, and we certainly don’t like talking about them. Unfortunately, while we haven’t changed since 2008, just about everything else has changed. Effective August 26th, 2013, a few of our delivery prices will change.

Let’s Start with the Good News

The first bit of good news: Your account fees won’t be changing. In fact, it’s easier than ever for you to get access to Interfolio. More institutions are using Interfolio’s ByCommittee, which provides free access to an Interfolio Dossier & Portfolio account upon applying to the opportunity.

The second bit of good news: Our most popular delivery methods won’t be changing at all. Applications to schools using our Interfolio ByCommittee product will remain free and applications sent via e-mail will hold steady at $6. We’ll also keep standard First-Class USPS and USPS Priority Mail deliveries at their current starting prices, $6 and $12 respectively.

For some context, here is what we’ve seen over the last year and a half, in terms of delivery percentages:

  • Deliveries sent to institutions using ByCommittee: 31.4%
  • Email deliveries: 25.2%
  • Online Application Deliveries: 23.9%
  • ALL Paper Delivery options: 19.4%

As you can see, we have a pretty serious trend towards electronic and away from paper, which is good for everyone. Electronic is faster, cheaper, and a whole lot easier for everyone involved!

What is Changing?

Again, many options will be staying put at their current prices. Here’s a rundown of the changes.

  • Online Application Delivery: $4 per delivery
  • USPS International Mail: $8
  • FedEx 2-Day Delivery: $21
  • FedEx Overnight Delivery: $33
  • FedEx Rush Overnight Delivery: $45
  • FedEx 2-3 Day International Delivery: $50

For any paper deliveries over 20 pages, we will charge an additional $2 per additional 20 pages for each delivery.

A Word on Webbies

The most significant change involves our Online Application Delivery method. Though it has become more and more popular the last couple of years, it remains our most misunderstood delivery option. For more information on how this unique delivery method (internally called “webbies” – short for “web delivery”) works, check out our recent blog post on the topic.

Long story short, many institutions have either developed or purchased software to help them manage their graduate admissions or faculty hiring processes on campus. Most of these applications have a mechanism in place for applicants to request confidential letters of recommendation from peers, mentors and faculty members.

Interfolio has developed a workaround for these systems, that allows the applicant to request that Interfolio fulfill the request with letters already in their Dossier account. An effective, but manual, labor-intensive workaround.

The Rest of the Story

Interfolio’s goal is to provide an incredible, user-centric experience for our users, allowing them to focus on the content of their applications rather than the process itself. We also want to do this as cheaply (for the applicant!) as possible. As we work with more institutions, and as everything moves to be electronic, you should see the costs associated with these applications continue to significantly drop.

At the same time we’ve added more flexibility via extended hours of our Fulfillment team and by extending our support coverage for an additional hour. We’ll continue doing everything that we can to add value to the Interfolio experience, without dramatically increasing the costs associated with being a user. As always, let us know if you have any concerns!