Tools for sizing a pallet order

Use the planner when you are comparing models. It lists the published pallet counts per 53 ft trailer for 48 x 40 nestable, stackable, rackable and lightweight designs, with the ratings beside each. Use the request form when you already know the footprint and want a load written.

Neither tool states a price, a minimum quantity or a lead time. There is no published offer sheet, and we do not make numbers up.

Start with the planner if you are comparing styles, because it shows the whole range from 540 to 2,340 on one screen. Start with the load quote if you already know what you want and need it written down.

• Both are free to use and neither states a price.
• Both work on a phone: the planner redraws and the form stacks.
• The planner remembers your choice for the session so the form can fill itself.

• Does the planner give a price? No. It gives the maker's published count and ratings for the style you pick.
• Why does it show a range for nestables? Because 1,200, 1,260 and 1,800 are three different makers' figures for three different models.
• Why no count for a 56 x 44? No source publishes one, so the planner says so.
• What happens to my choice? It is kept for the session and written into the request form when you press the quote button, never over something you typed.

Both tools are a way to arrive at a better question, not a replacement for the reply. The reply is where a model is chosen and a count is written next to its source.

A tool answers the question it was built for. If you need a price, a minimum order or a lead time, no tool here will produce one, because no source we hold publishes any. If you need a pallet no maker lists, a custom mould is a longer conversation, and the custom page explains how that goes.

• The planner does not know your dock.
• The form does not know your racks.
• The written reply is where those meet.

Most buyers start with the truckload planner, which turns a footprint and a trailer into a count, then take that count to the quote form with the ship-to ZIP. A buyer who already knows the model can skip straight to the form. The planner is arithmetic; the form starts a conversation with a person.

• They do not quote a price.
• They do not promise a lead time.
• They do not replace the receiver's own specification.
• They do not hold your data after you leave the page, apart from what you send in the form.

Every figure a tool shows is either arithmetic you can repeat with a calculator or a number a named maker, agency or standard has published. Where a tool cannot do either, it shows nothing rather than a guess, and that blank is deliberate.

• The truckload planner comes first, when the footprint is known and the count is not.
• The load quote form comes second, when the count is known and the ratings and the papers are not.
• The guides sit behind both, for the questions the reply raises.
• The lane pages sit beside both, for the questions about a particular state.