Less-than-truckload
Your pallet shares a trailer with freight from other shippers heading the same general direction, and you pay for the space and weight it occupies rather than the whole truck.
Freight
What is pallet shipping?
Freight built on a pallet and moved by truck, priced by weight, density and freight class rather than the flat per-box number a parcel carrier charges. Most of it rides less-than-truckload, sharing trailer space with other shippers' pallets on the same route.
Class-driven pricingPriced by a personNot a parcel rate
A pallet, not a package
Once freight needs a forklift instead of a person, it has left parcel pricing behind.
The short version
Pallet shipping means building a load onto a standard platform, wrapping and banding it so it moves as one unit, and handing it to a trucking carrier rather than USPS, UPS or FedEx as a parcel. The carrier weighs it, measures it, assigns it a freight class, and bills by the hundredweight for that class on that lane. Nothing about the price is fixed the way a parcel rate card is — change the class, the weight or the accessorials and the number moves.
Built on a platform
The load sits on a pallet, gets shrink-wrapped or banded, and is handled with a forklift or pallet jack at both ends — not carried by a driver the way a parcel is.
Priced by class and weight
The bill runs off a rate per hundred pounds for the freight class assigned, not a flat number tied to a box size the way parcel rates work.
What freight class is a pallet?
There is no single answer, and that surprises most people the first time they ship a pallet. The pallet itself is not what gets classed — the commodity sitting on it is. Two pallets that are the exact same footprint and the exact same weight can land on different classes: one loaded with dense machine parts might class low, while one loaded with bulky, lightweight packaging classes high, because the National Motor Freight Classification grades a commodity on density along with three other characteristics — how it handles, how it stows against other freight, and the liability risk it carries. A pallet of steel fittings and a pallet of empty boxes can weigh the same and still bill at opposite ends of the class ladder.
That is also why a single "pallet shipping cost" figure does not exist as a lookup table. The class drives the rate per hundredweight, and the class comes from what is strapped down, not from the pallet underneath it. Our freight class chart lays out all eighteen classes, and the freight class calculator turns dimensions and weight into a density estimate for one pallet at a time.
When a shipment stops being a parcel
The line is usually physical before it is financial. A box that needs two people or a forklift to lift, or one that exceeds what a parcel carrier will accept per package, has already crossed into pallet territory regardless of what it would cost either way. Our LTL against parcel guide covers where the crossover in price typically sits for freight that could plausibly go either route.
SMKlog does not price pallet or LTL freight through the automatic calculator the way it prices parcels. A parcel quote comes back in seconds because the math is a lookup against carrier rate tables for a known box. A pallet quote needs a person, because class, accessorials — liftgate, residential delivery, limited access, inside delivery — and the lane itself all move the number, and getting any of them wrong on paper means a rebill after pickup. How LTL pricing works walks through the mechanics in more detail.
Common questions
What is pallet shipping?
Freight built on a pallet and moved by truck, priced by weight, density and freight class instead of the flat per-box rate a parcel carrier charges. Most pallet freight travels less-than-truckload, sharing a trailer with other shippers' pallets rather than filling one alone.
What freight class is a pallet?
There is no single answer, because the pallet is not what gets classed — the commodity on it is. Two pallets the same size and weight can carry different classes if one holds dense machine parts and the other holds bulky foam packaging, because NMFTA class is set by density along with handling, stowability and liability, not by the footprint alone.
When does a shipment stop being a parcel and become a pallet?
When it needs a forklift instead of a person to move it, or when a parcel carrier's per-box weight or length limit is the thing stopping you — both signal it belongs on a pallet.
Does SMKlog quote pallet shipping automatically?
No. Parcel rates on this site come back live from the calculator; pallet and LTL freight is priced by a person because the class, the accessorials and the lane all change the number in ways an automatic quote would get wrong.
Do I need a loading dock to ship a pallet?
Not always, but say so when you book. A driver arriving at a residential or non-dock address without that flag noted usually means a missed pickup or an added fee, not a free adjustment on the spot.