Skip to the calculator
ShipMargin

CBM calculator

Calculate cubic metres for cartons or pallets, convert CBM to chargeable kilograms for air, sea and road, and see which basis your freight will actually be billed on.

Free · no sign-up Runs in your browser Updated
Carton dimensions
cm
cm
cm
kg
How is it travelling?

Each mode converts volume to chargeable weight differently — this is the single biggest reason two quotes on the same box look nothing alike.

LCL is quoted per revenue tonne: whichever is greater, 1 CBM or 1000 kg.

Total volume
9.6 m³

0.096 m³ per carton · 339 ft³

Total weight
1,200 kg
Density
125 kg/m³
Chargeable weight
9,600 kg
Billed on volume
Revenue tonnes
9.6
This freight is volume-limited: you pay for 8400 kg you are not shipping. Denser packing or a different mode will save money.
Chargeable weight by mode

Air freight (IATA) is 7,996.8 kg cheaper than Sea LCL (weight/measure) — a 83% difference on the same parcel.

Air freight (IATA) Cheapest1,603.2 kg
167 kg/m³
Air express / courier1,920 kg
200 kg/m³
Road freight (Europe)3,196.8 kg
333 kg/m³
Rail freight3,196.8 kg
333 kg/m³
Sea LCL (weight/measure)Selected9,600 kg
1000 kg/m³

Same consignment, four answers. This is why a forwarder can undercut an express carrier on a bulky pallet and lose to them on a dense one.

Questions people ask about this

How do you calculate CBM?

Length times width times height in metres. If you are measuring in centimetres, multiply the three and divide by one million. A 60 by 40 by 40 cm carton is 96,000 cubic centimetres, which is 0.096 CBM.

How many kg is 1 CBM?

It depends entirely on the mode, and this is where quotes get misread. Air freight bills 1 CBM as 167 kg. A courier bills it as 200 kg. Sea LCL bills it as 1,000 kg. The same box therefore has three different chargeable weights depending on how it travels.

What is a revenue tonne?

The LCL billing unit: whichever is greater of one cubic metre or one metric tonne. Because most consumer goods are lighter than 1,000 kg per cubic metre, LCL is usually billed on volume.

Related calculators

Container loadCartons or pallets per container, and what limits the load.Pallet loadingCartons per layer and per pallet, packed the way a warehouse would.Chargeable weightThe greater of actual and volumetric, with the carrier's rounding applied.Freight classDensity in lb/ft³ mapped to an NMFC class, on the current scale.

Where these numbers come from

Rates and rules change, and a calculator running on stale data is worse than no calculator. Every figure below carries the date we last checked it and a confidence level, so you can judge how much weight to put on it.

Source Publisher Effective Confidence
IATA volumetric ratio for air cargo (1:6000) 6000 cubic centimetres per kilogram, equivalently 167 kg per cubic metre. This is why an air-freight quote and a courier quote on the same box differ: couriers use 5000, giving 200 kg per cubic metre. Air cargo standard practice — Corroborated
LCL weight-or-measure (W/M) revenue tonne LCL is quoted per revenue tonne: whichever is greater of 1 cubic metre or 1,000 kg. Ocean freight standard practice — Corroborated

Page last reviewed . Spotted something out of date? Tell us — corrections are published with the date they were made.