Pallet math, container specs, and cargo optimization — explained.
A 20ft container takes 511 lengths of 110 mm plastic pipe nested, or 52 lengths of 315 mm. Steel pipe stops on weight long before the box is full. Here are the counts, size by size, and how to load them.
Read guide →A 13.6 m curtainsider takes 33 Euro pallets on the floor. A 53ft van takes 26 GMA pallets. Both numbers are the easy part — the one that decides your load is the weight.
Read guide →A reefer is heavier empty, carries a similar payload, and holds noticeably less than a dry container of the same size. Here are the actual numbers, and which limit you'll hit.
Read guide →A trailer can be under its payload limit and still be illegal. The number that stops you is almost never total weight — it's how that weight lands on each axle group.
Read guide →Dividing container volume by carton volume tells you a number that almost never survives contact with a real container. A 3D calculator places each box instead — here's what that changes, and how to read the result.
Read guide →Two different jobs get called 'air load planning': deciding what goes into a ULD, and balancing the aircraft. Here's the first one — contours, gross weight, and the traps that make air different from sea.
Read guide →Stuffing is the operation everything else depends on — get the sequence or the weight distribution wrong and you find out at the weighbridge, or at the far end. Here's the whole process.
Read guide →Entry prices span $39.99/mo to quote-only enterprise licences — and the pricing model (per seat, per workspace, day tickets, perpetual) matters more than the sticker.
Read guide →Most export documents don't bounce because the goods are wrong — they bounce because a field is missing. Here's every mandatory field on an Indian Commercial Invoice and Packing List, and the ones that quietly hold up your bank remittance.
Read guide →A 53ft trailer holds 26 standard pallets floor-loaded — 13 per side — or 30 if you turn them, and up to 52 double-stacked. But at ~45,000 lb of payload, weight, not floor space, is usually what stops you. Here's how to work out your real number.
Read guide →Reefers are smaller inside than dry containers of the same length, and they load by different rules — you can't just fill them to the roof. Here are the real dimensions and how to load for airflow.
Read guide →You're not billed on what your shipment weighs — you're billed on the greater of its actual weight and its dimensional weight. Here's how dim weight is calculated, the divisors that matter, and how to lower it.
Read guide →Total weight isn't the whole story. Where the weight sits — front-to-back, side-to-side, high-or-low — decides whether a container is safe to lift and legal to truck. Here's how to load for balance.
Read guide →Some cargo simply can't travel next to other cargo. Here's how dangerous-goods segregation works, the groups and 'keep apart' rules that govern it, and how to build a load plan that respects them.
Read guide →The slowest part of load planning was never the packing math — it was typing the manifest in. Here's how AI paste-parsing and an in-app assistant are changing that, and where the deterministic engine still does the real work.
Read guide →How the leading container load planners stack up on features, weight handling, import, API and price — and which one fits occasional loads, enterprise freight, or end-to-end retail packing.
Read guide →Most containers ship 15–25% empty. Here's how load optimization — orientation, mixed-SKU packing, stacking and void reduction — raises real utilisation and removes containers from your shipments.
Read guide →Not all 'container calculators' are the same. Here are the 8 capabilities that separate a real load-planning tool from a volume estimator — use it as a checklist when you evaluate.
Read guide →LCL bills per CBM; FCL is flat. Somewhere around 13–15 CBM a full container gets cheaper per unit — but the exact break-even is yours to calculate. Here's how, and the hidden costs to weigh.
Read guide →Most container shipping savings come from one place: shipping fewer containers by filling each one properly. Here are 7 concrete levers — and how to know which applies to your cargo.
Read guide →A truck can be under its gross weight limit and still be illegal if one axle is overloaded. Here are the axle limits, why load distribution decides it, and how to catch an overload before the truck rolls.
Read guide →Counter-intuitively, a 20ft container carries MORE weight than a 40ft. Here are the max gross, tare and payload figures for each container, plus why road and axle limits usually bind first.
Read guide →There's no single number — it depends on your carton size. Here's the simple formula, a worked table for common box sizes, and why you never hit the theoretical maximum.
Read guide →The quick answer is 11 Euro pallets or 9 standard pallets on the floor — but the real number depends on pallet type, stacking, and weight. Here's how to work it out.
Read guide →CBM is just length × width × height in metres. Here's how to calculate it for a single carton or a whole shipment, convert from cm or inches, and turn it into chargeable weight.
Read guide →A loading plan is the door-to-nose map of a container: what goes where, in what order, and how full it really is. Here's how to build one by hand — and the fast way to generate it.
Read guide →A 20ft container is ~5.90 m of usable length, a 40ft ~12.03 m — same width and height. Here are the full internal, external, door and weight specs for every common container.
Read guide →The quick answer is 25 Euro pallets or 22 standard ISO pallets on the floor — but the real number depends on pallet type, stacking, and weight. Here's how to work it out.
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ContainerMathThe industry standard for 3D container cargo packing and loading plans. Optimize layouts, maximize volume, and reduce shipping overhead.
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