Pallet calculator
Work out how many cartons fit on a Euro, GMA or Asian pallet using real two-block packing, not volume division, plus stack height, gross weight and pallets required.
8 per layer × 6 layers · 4 × 2 crosswise
How much of the stack is product rather than air. Below 70%, a different carton size usually tiles the deck better.
| Step | Working | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Cartons per layerPacked onto the 120 × 80 cm deck. | 4 × 2 crosswise | 8 |
| Layers | floor((180 − 14.4 deck) ÷ 25) | 6 |
| Cartons per pallet | 48 | |
| Pallets needed | ceil(500 ÷ 48) | 11 |
Step 2 of 4 — I am planning freight
How does this load pack, and what class does it move at?
Why volume division gives the wrong answer
The intuitive way to work out cartons per pallet is to divide pallet volume by carton volume. It is also reliably wrong, usually by 10 to 25%, and always in the optimistic direction. Cartons are rigid and rectangular; they have to tile a fixed deck in whole units, and whatever strip is left over at the edge is wasted whether or not there is volume in it. A 40 by 30 cm carton on a 120 by 80 cm Euro pallet tiles perfectly at eight per layer. Change the carton to 45 by 30 and the same deck holds eight in one orientation with a 15 cm strip spare, or a mixed arrangement that packs differently again.
This calculator packs the main block in one orientation and then fills the leftover strips with rotated cartons, which is what a warehouse operative actually does and what a pallet-building robot is programmed to do. The result is a Ti and a Hi — cartons per layer and number of layers — which is the form a forwarder will ask for.
The height that matters is not the pallet's
Stack height is usually limited by something other than the pallet. Road freight commonly caps at 180 cm including the pallet base. Sea freight is limited by the container door rather than its internal height, and a 40 foot high cube door is about 258 cm — so a double-stacked pallet has to clear the door opening, not the roof. Warehouse racking, the receiving site's own rules and the crush strength of the bottom carton all bind before the theoretical maximum does.
Questions people ask about this
Answers written from the published rules, not from other people's summaries of them. Every figure quoted below is listed with its source at the foot of this page.
Every formula on this siteHow many boxes fit on a pallet?
It depends on how the boxes tile the deck, not just on volume. This calculator packs the main block in one orientation, then fills the leftover strips with rotated cartons, which is what a warehouse actually does. Dividing pallet volume by carton volume overstates the count, sometimes by 20% or more.
What is Ti-Hi?
Ti is the number of cartons in one layer, Hi is the number of layers. Multiply them for cartons per pallet. The term comes from tier and height, and freight forwarders will often ask for it directly.
What is the maximum pallet height?
Commonly 180 cm including the pallet for road freight, and constrained by the container door for sea freight — a 40 foot high cube door is about 258 cm, so a double-stacked pallet has to fit inside that, not inside the container's internal height.
What is the difference between a Euro pallet and a GMA pallet?
Footprint and where they are used. The Euro pallet, EPAL-standardised, is 1200 by 800 mm and dominant across Europe. The GMA pallet, the North American grocery standard, is 48 by 40 inches — 1219 by 1016 mm — and noticeably wider. A carton designed to tile one will usually not tile the other, and since two Euro pallets fit the width of a standard container while GMA pallets pinwheel, the choice changes both cartons per pallet and pallets per container.
Does overhang matter if the cartons still fit the container?
Yes, on three counts. Overhanging cartons carry no support under their edges and lose a large share of their compression strength, which is how a bottom layer collapses in transit. Many receiving warehouses reject overhanging pallets outright. And the pallet's effective footprint for planning a container becomes the overhung dimension, not the pallet's, so the loading plan built on the nominal size will not fit.
Should I interlock the layers or column-stack them?
Column-stack if the load has to hold weight. A carton's compression strength runs down its vertical corners, so stacking corner over corner keeps most of it. Interlocking — rotating alternate layers like brickwork — ties the stack together and resists toppling, but it lands corners on top of unsupported panels and can cost half the stack strength. The usual compromise is to column-stack and stabilise with corner boards and wrap rather than to interlock.
Further reading
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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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| EPAL Euro pallet dimensions and load ratings The 1200 x 800 mm Euro pallet footprint and its deck height come from EPAL, which issues the standard. The GMA (48 x 40 in), Asian (1100 x 1100 mm), Australian (1165 x 1165 mm) and half-Euro footprints in the same table are industry standards without a single issuing body and are corroborated across independent operators rather than read off one document. Maximum load figures are typical safe working loads: a specific pallet's rating depends on its condition and how the load sits on it. | European Pallet Association (EPAL) | Not specifiedChecked 2026-08-25 | Primary source |
Page updated . Spotted something out of date? Tell us — corrections are published with the date they were made.
More on the working: every formula on this site, the full source register, what the terms mean, and how we decide what to publish. What an estimate here can and cannot support is set out in the accuracy notes.