Before you book space, you want to know how many cartons or pallets go in a container, and how many containers the whole load needs. The answer is set by four things: the floor area, how many layers fit under the roof, what you may stack on what, and the payload limit. Whichever runs out first sets the count.
Open the free container load planner
Floor. Count how many footprints fit across the width and along the length, trying both ways round. Odd widths waste floor: two 120 cm Euro pallets side by side do not fit a 235 cm interior, so loaders mix pallet directions, and that is what a packer has to search for.
Layers. Divide the inside height by the unit height, rounded down. A 110 cm pallet gets two layers under a 239 cm roof and wastes 19 cm; an 85 cm pallet gets two layers in a standard 40 ft and three in a high cube, because three times 85 is 255 and the high cube is about 270 cm tall.
Stacking. Cartons marked fragile or pallets of soft goods may not be stacked, so the layer count becomes one. The planner takes a highest layer and a weight allowed on top for each line.
Payload. A dense load fills the payload before the space. A 600 kg pallet in a 26,500 kg container stops at 44 pallets however much air is left.
An invented exporter has 150 Euro pallets, each 120 × 80 × 85 cm and 250 kg, which may be stacked. The planner uses nominal inside sizes of 12,032 × 2,352 × 2,393 mm for a 40 ft container and 2,698 mm high for the high cube, both with a 26,500 kg payload. These are commonly quoted figures, not a certificate for your equipment.
| Container | Pallets in the first | Layers | Containers for 150 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40 ft | 50 | 2 | 3 |
| 40 ft high cube | 75 | 3 | 2 |
The floor takes 25 pallets in both, in a mixed arrangement of lengthwise and crosswise rows. The standard container stops at two layers, 50 pallets, so 150 pallets need three of them. The high cube takes a third layer, 75 pallets, so two of them carry everything, at 18,750 kg each, well inside the payload.
Change the pallet height to 110 cm and the extra height buys nothing: three layers need 330 cm, so a high cube still holds two layers and 50 pallets. Whether a high cube pays depends on the cargo, not on the container alone.
Now make the pallets 600 kg and 110 cm tall, 70 of them, in a standard 40 ft. The floor and the two layers would take 50, but the payload stops the first container at 44 pallets (26,400 kg); the remaining 26 pallets go in a second container, 15,600 kg. Two containers, and the lower bound from weight is also two.
It is a heuristic: it tries many orderings and keeps the best, which is not a proof that nothing better exists. A person who knows the cargo may find another fit, so keep a margin.
A nominal 20 ft container is about 5.9 m long and 2.35 m wide, so its floor holds about 11 Euro pallets or 10 of the 48 x 40 inch size, and a second layer doubles that if the pallets are low and strong enough to stack. The planner packs your own pallet size and weight rather than quoting a number.
No. It adds about 30 cm of height, which helps only when a whole extra layer fits. Three layers of 85 cm pallets fit a high cube but not a standard container; three layers of 110 cm fit neither.
A container has a payload limit. Dense goods such as 600 kg pallets reach it long before the space is used, so the number per container is the payload divided by the weight per unit, rounded down.
Pallets are faster to load and handle, but each deck takes height and the pallet footprint can waste floor. Compare both on your own cargo; the planner's comparison table shows containers and fill for each.
Choosing carton sizes before you pack? The shipping box size optimizer picks which sizes to stock. Shipping a single pallet by LTL? The LTL freight class estimator works out the class.