Free tool · runs in your browser
Cartons in, chargeable units out: CBM, gross kg and per-channel chargeable weight (express 200, air 167, sea 1000 kg per CBM; W/M rounding). Free, no signup.
Outer carton dimensions, gross weight. All five values, one shipment.
Forwarders do not price the space your freight takes or the weight it carries — they price the larger of the two, converted into their own unit. The ratios below are the conventions the workbench ships with, drawn from the public rate card of 2026-09-28; your forwarder's contract may differ, and in the workbench every one of them is editable.
Multiply any row's chargeable units by your own quoted rate and you have that channel's freight cost for this shipment. The workbench does that across every channel at once, adds surcharges and per-shipment fees the same way forwarders do, and puts the options side by side with their service scope — because a port-to-port line and a DDP line are never the same purchase, whatever the totals say.
Everything computes locally in your browser. No upload, no account, no rates required — this page deliberately shows physics, not prices. Public rate card verified 2026-09-28.
Cubic metres. Multiply length by width by height in metres, so a carton of 0.45 x 0.3 x 0.25 m is 0.034 CBM. For a shipment, work out one carton and multiply by the number of cartons. Measure the outside of the carton as loaded, because that is what gets measured on the dock.
A 20GP is commonly planned at about 28 CBM and a 40 high-cube at about 67 CBM, and both are capped on weight as well as volume. Those are planning figures for what you can realistically load, not the geometric volume: you cannot stack to the roof or fill every gap, and your own packing pattern decides how close you get.
The greater of the actual gross weight and the volumetric weight, where volumetric weight is the volume multiplied by a channel-specific ratio. A light, bulky shipment is therefore billed as if it weighed more than it does. Each channel applies its own ratio and its own rounding step, which is why one carton can cost very different amounts by air and by sea.
Because a shipping line has to recover both the space it gives up and the weight it lifts. Under the weight-or-measure rule one cubic metre counts as 1000 kg, and you are billed on whichever is larger. Most general cargo ends up billed on measure, which is why packing density matters more on sea freight than on any other channel.
There is no universal cut-off. The break-even depends on your own quoted container price, your LCL rate per revenue ton, and the per-shipment fees you stop paying once you fill a box, all of which move with the market. Rules of thumb such as 12 to 15 CBM are rough and frequently wrong; work the break-point out with your actual numbers.
Yes, because chargeable amounts always round up. Parcels typically round to the next half kilogram and LCL to the next tenth of a cubic metre, so a shipment at 10.05 CBM is billed as 10.1. Sitting just below a rounding boundary means the freight you can still add up to it is effectively free.
Whatever the carrier will measure, which is the shipment as loaded. On a palletised shipment that means the pallet, the stretch wrap and the banding all count. Measuring bare cartons and adding pallets later understates both the volume you are billed on and the density your freight class is derived from.