The State of Label Printing

What ~2.5 million yearly US searches say about who prints labels, what they print, which printers they buy, and when demand spikes. Drawn from Google search-demand data, updated for 2026.

2.5M

label-printing searches a year (US)

USPS

#1 label source, more than UPS + FedEx combined

+43%

demand from spring low to December peak

$5.25

avg. CPC: buyers, not browsers

Source: DataForSEO (Google Ads), United States, 12-month trailing search volume to May 2026. Figures are a curated basket of representative label-printing keywords across carriers, marketplaces, printer brands, label sizes, how-to, and software (indicative category demand, not all of Google). Volumes are Google's rounded buckets.

Label printing is a shipping habit, not a software search

Group the demand by intent and it's lopsided. Carriers, marketplaces, and the plain phrase "shipping labels" account for most of it; searches for "label printing software" are barely 1%. People look up their carrier and their label size, not a tool. Whoever wins this category wins it on shipping keywords.

Carriers 95,180

Sizes & formats 60,580

Printer brands 26,890

How-to 14,680

Marketplaces 10,680

Software 2,650

Monthly US search volume by intent group

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USPS owns the label

Among carriers it isn't close. "USPS shipping label" pulls roughly 49,500 searches a month, more than UPS and FedEx put together. If you print shipping labels in the United States, you're overwhelmingly printing USPS.

USPS 49,500

UPS 27,100

FedEx 18,100

DHL 480

Monthly US searches, "[carrier] shipping label"

The December wall

Most of the year, demand drifts inside a fairly narrow band: a strong March and a busy August come close to the top. December breaks it: at roughly 255k searches it's the busiest month of the year, about 43% above the spring low, as holiday shipping lands on every packing bench. It reads less like a gradual season than one hard Q4 wall, which is exactly when label capacity bites.

255k

JunJulAugSepOctNovDecJanFebMarAprMay

Basket search volume by month, Jun 2025 – May 2026 · green = peak

Zebra leads, but the budget brands arrived

Zebra is still the most-searched label-printer brand. The surprise is second place: Phomemo, a sub-$50 newcomer, now draws as much search interest as Brother and more than Rollo or DYMO. The hardware commoditized. The software mostly didn't, which is the gap PaperReady was built for.

Zebra 6,600

Phomemo 5,400

Brother 5,400

Rollo 3,600

DYMO 3,600

Munbyn 1,300

Polono 880

Arkscan 110

Monthly US searches, "[brand] label printer"

Buyers, not browsers

Average cost-per-click across the commercial terms in this category is $5.25. Advertisers don't pay that for idle curiosity: label searches convert into hardware, supplies, and software purchases. The "free label printing software" query alone shows people arrive ready to act but price-sensitive.

Cite this report

PaperReady (2026). The State of Label Printing.
https://paperready.studio/state-of-label-printing/

Charts and figures are free to reuse with a link back to this page. Questions or a custom cut of the data? Get in touch.

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