Pallet calculator: cartons, tubes and drums
Enter the item and you get the best pattern the tool can find, drawn, plus what that same item would yield on every pallet size. Round items are worked out with hexagonal nesting, which is how they actually stack.
Three different problems behind one question
"How much fits on a pallet" sounds like one question and is three, with different mathematics behind each:
- Cartons. Fitting rectangles inside a rectangle. The tool tests all aligned one way, all rotated, and the mixed two-block patterns — a group one way round with the leftover strip turned — which is where most of the gain hides and what gets missed when a pallet is laid out by eye.
- Round items standing up. Drums, reels, buckets. Two patterns compete here: the grid, and hexagonal, where each row shifts half a diameter and settles into the gaps of the one before.
- Tubes lying down. The most interesting case, because the nesting happens in the height of the stack rather than across the deck.
Why round items are calculated differently
Place circles in a grid and each occupies a square the width of its diameter, using at
best 78.5 per cent of the space — the waste is the four corner gaps. Shift every other
row by half a diameter and the circles drop into those gaps, and the distance between row
centres falls from one diameter to 0.866 × diameter. Maximum utilisation rises
to 90.7 per cent.
That 0.866 is the square root of three over two, and it comes from the fact that the centres of three touching circles form an equilateral triangle. It is not a packing trick: it is the densest possible arrangement of circles in a plane, and has been known for centuries.
With tubes lying down the effect is even more pronounced, because the nesting acts on the height of the stack. A nested stack fits roughly one extra row for every six or seven rows compared with stacking them straight. The tool calculates both and tells you which wins in your case.
Standard pallet sizes
| Pallet | Imperial | Metric | Deck height | Where you meet it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GMA / North American | 48 × 40 in | 121.9 × 101.6 cm | 5.5 in | The dominant North American size, grocery and retail |
| Euro EPAL | 47.2 × 31.5 in | 120 × 80 cm | 5.7 in | The European standard, pooled and exchangeable |
| Euro 2 industrial | 47.2 × 39.4 in | 120 × 100 cm | 5.7 in | Heavy industrial goods, chemicals, drums |
| Half Euro | 31.5 × 23.6 in | 80 × 60 cm | 5.7 in | Retail display, short runs, store replenishment |
The comparison under the result runs your item against all four, because the pallet choice changes more than people expect: an item that wastes 20 per cent of a GMA deck can tile a Euro cleanly. That decision gets made once and then carried for years.
A row of tubes leaves gaps between each pair, and the next row settles into those gaps rather than on top. That drops the spacing between rows from one diameter to 0.866 diameters, and fits extra rows in. On a Euro pallet a 4.3 in tube goes from 70 pieces in a grid to 80 nested — 14 per cent more goods in the same pallet position. The tool tests both and keeps the better, because nesting does not always win: when the diameter divides cleanly into the deck, the grid can come out ahead.
A pattern covering 78 per cent of the deck means 22 per cent of every pallet position you pay for — in the trailer, in the warehouse, in the container — is carrying air. With round items, note the ceiling: a perfect hexagonal packing tops out at 90.7 per cent, so 85 per cent with tubes is already excellent and chasing 100 is chasing nothing.
The tool tests aligned patterns, mixed two-block patterns, and for round items both grid and hexagonal in either orientation. Professional palletising software also tests pinwheel and interlocked patterns, which occasionally win a piece or two per layer at some cost in stability.
Two worked examples
Cartons: the mixed pattern nobody lays out by instinct
A 16 × 12 × 10 inch carton on a GMA pallet, stacked to 72 inches.
- Aligned: 48 ÷ 16 = 3 across, 40 ÷ 12 = 3 deep. 9 per layer, 1,728 of the 1,920 in² deck — 90 per cent.
- Rotated: 4 across, 2 deep. 8 per layer. Worse.
- Two-block mixed: a 16 in band across the width filled with four cartons turned lengthwise (4 × 12 = 48, the exact deck length), leaving 24 in of width for two 12 in bands of three. 4 + 6 = 10 per layer, the entire deck covered.
- Usable height 66.5 in ÷ 10 = 6 layers. Total 60 cartons.
Tubes: nesting is worth 14 per cent
Tubes of 11 cm diameter, standing up, on a Euro pallet.
- In a grid: 120 ÷ 11 = 10 across, 80 ÷ 11 = 7 deep. 70 per layer.
- Nested: rows sit 11 × 0.866 = 9.53 cm apart instead of 11, so 8 rows fit instead of 7. Odd rows carry 10 tubes and even rows 9, being offset half a diameter. Total: 4 × 10 + 4 × 9 = 80 per layer.
And the detail that decides it: with 20 cm tubes on the same pallet the grid wins, 24 against 22, because 20 divides cleanly into both 120 and 80 and hexagonal loses more at the edges than it gains in rows. That is why the tool always computes both.
Where this calculator stops being accurate
- Nesting needs the tubes not to roll. On paper a nested stack is denser; in a trailer, without chocks, cradles or a frame, it is a stack that moves. The figure tells you what fits, not what is safe to carry unsecured.
- It assumes rigid, uniform items. Anything that bulges, sags or settles under load will not tile the way the arithmetic says. Sacks, soft packs and soft rolls need a different approach.
- Stability is not modelled. A load taller than twice the pallet's short side needs interlocked layers, corner boards or a stretch-wrap specification, and the tool does not know which you have.
- Crush strength is not checked. The bottom layer carries everything above it. With nested tubes the load does not spread as it does with cartons: each tube bears on two lines of contact, not across a face, which concentrates stress.
- No pinwheel or interlocked patterns. These beat the two-block result on some sizes, at some cost in stability.
- Overhang rules vary by customer. Many retailers refuse any overhang. The option here is a simple allowance, not the receiving customer's specification.
Questions people actually ask
What exactly is hexagonal nesting?
Placing each row of round items shifted half a diameter from the one before, so they settle into the gaps rather than directly on top. The centres of three touching items form an equilateral triangle, which is where the 0.866-diameter row spacing comes from instead of a full diameter. It is the densest possible arrangement of circles in a plane, and it is what happens on its own when you let a few tubes roll together on a deck.
Why does the grid sometimes win?
Because hexagonal uses the middle better but wastes more at the edges: offset rows lose one item every other row. When the diameter divides cleanly into both pallet dimensions, the grid leaves nothing over and comes out ahead. A 20 cm tube on a 120 × 80 pallet is the textbook case: 24 in a grid against 22 nested.
Can I just stack tubes nested and go?
They will fit. Whether they survive the journey is another matter. An unsecured nested stack shifts under braking and can collapse, and the bottom tubes carry the load on two lines of contact rather than spread across a face. In practice it is solved with chocks on the bottom row, a cradle, or separators between layers. Check with whoever is carrying it before treating the number as final.
Why does turning the cartons round change the answer so much?
Because a deck only tiles cleanly at particular ratios. A 12-inch carton divides into a 48-inch length exactly four times and into a 40-inch width three times with 4 inches left over. A 13-inch carton divides into neither, and every layer leaves a wasted strip. What changes the answer is not the rotation — it is whether the numbers divide.
Should I allow overhang to fit more on?
Generally no. An overhanging item loses much of its strength because its corner posts are unsupported, and the corners carry the stack. Research on this has been consistent for decades: a small overhang can cost a third or more of the stack strength. Most retail receiving specifications ban it for exactly that reason.
What is the pallet comparison for?
To see at a glance whether you are on the wrong pallet. The choice is usually inherited — “we have always used GMA here” — and with certain item sizes another size yields considerably more per position. Since the pallet gets chosen once and then carried for years, it is worth a look at the table before treating the current format as settled.
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