Guides

Door01

Start with the question you have

Door02

What a used pallet is worth

A used pallet's worth depends on grade, size, count, condition and timing, but the order holds when the price moves: a sound Grade A 48x40 is worth more than a Grade B, a Grade B more than a core, and a broken pallet is usually a cost to clear. A core is a used pallet a shipper no longer needs, valued as a core until it is inspected.

Value is also local. A buyer in Edenvale who needs 300 Grade B pallets next week values a pile differently from one with nothing to ship, so treat any single price for 'a used pallet' with caution unless it names grade, size and quantity.

Door03

Block and stringer pallets

A stringer pallet is built on three or more parallel timbers and is entered from the ends unless the stringers are notched; a block pallet stands on blocks with stringers both ways and is entered from any side. Softwood stringer pallets are the cheapest; block pallets are usually heavier and more durable.

Door04

The GMA pallet

The GMA pallet is the 48 by 40 inch wooden pallet (1,219 by 1,016 mm), named for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which no longer governs pallet specifications. The GMA pallet of the 1960s was a four-way wooden platform; today the name mostly means the size, and ISO accepts the CBA's 48 by 40 specification as the North American standard. GMA says nothing about grade, so a request for GMA pallets needs a grade as well.

About half a billion pallets are made each year and about two billion are in use in the United States alone; metal pallets are under 1 percent of the market, and pallet production takes 43 percent of the hardwood and 15 percent of the softwood used in the US. So many exist that sorting and regrading used 48x40s is a business of its own.

Door05

Combo and remanufactured pallets

A remanufacturer takes cores, keeps the sound lumber and replaces the rest with new, so a combo or remanufactured pallet is a mix of recycled and new wood built to one spec. That makes it more consistent than a used pallet and cheaper than a new one: pallets from the same line share lumber and fasteners and behave alike in racking and on conveyors. A repaired Grade B, by contrast, is the original pallet with replaced boards, plates or plugs.

Combo is still partly used wood, so it will not meet a specification that demands new lumber. For one-way freight Grade B usually works; for automated lines, racking and circulating pallets combo is worth a look.

Door06

A pallet's footprint

A pallet's footprint is the floor it covers: multiply its two sides in inches and divide by 144. A 48 by 40 is 1,920 square inches, about 13.3 square feet. Stacking changes the height, not the footprint, so floor taken is stacks times that area: 200 empties stacked 10 high make 20 stacks and cover about 267 square feet, standing about 5 feet tall at 6 inches a pallet.

The sum assumes stacks side by side, all one height, with no aisle. Real floors need aisles, pallet-jack turns and door clearance, so the true floor taken is more. The floor calculator makes the same assumptions and states them.

Door07

What storing empties costs

The floor under a pile costs stacks times footprint times the monthly lease rate. Fifty empty 48x40s stacked 10 high are 5 stacks, about 67 square feet. CBRE's Silicon Valley Industrial Figures for Q3 2026, published 12 October 2026, give an average direct asking rent of $1.78 per square foot per month, triple net, which puts that floor at about $119 a month.

Asking rent is what a landlord lists, not what a tenant pays, and leases carry extra charges, so use your own rate when you have it. Nor is this what a warehouse charges to store pallets, which is a separate service. A pile that refills carries the cost every month, which is the case for a standing clearing.

Door08

How many pallets fit in a trailer

A 53-foot dry van is about 630 inches long inside and 98 to 100 inches wide, depending on the trailer. Loaded with the 48-inch side along the trailer, 48x40s sit 2 across in 13 rows: 26. Turned, two 48-inch sides take 96 inches of width and 15 rows of 40 inches fit: 30, if the trailer is wide enough. A mixed pinwheel pattern is usually given as 28.

These are single-stacked counts from 630 by 98 inches, with no allowance for door posts or load locks; real counts are often one row fewer, and heavy freight reaches the legal weight limit before the floor fills. Empties stack high, so a trailer carries far more empty pallets than loaded ones: when buying or selling by the truck, give the count and the trailer size.

Door09

Reading the HT stamp

An HT stamp shows the wood was heat treated under ISPM 15: debarked, then held with its core at 56 °C (133 °F) or more for 30 minutes. The mark is burned or stamped into the wood, usually on two opposite sides, and has four parts.

A mark is no use if it cannot be read, if the pallet was repaired after treatment (the new wood is untreated), or if the producer cannot be identified. Heat treatment does not stop mold, either: pallets loaded onto trailers while still hot are prone to it.

Door10

Exporting equipment on ISPM 15 wood

Every piece of wood packaging that leaves the country needs the mark: the pallet under a machine, the crate around a tool and the skid or bearers. Plywood and engineered wood typically do not, as processed wood, and plastic and metal pallets never do. Destination rules differ, so confirm with the receiving country's plant-health authority or your freight forwarder.

1. Count every wood component of the packaging, not only the pallet.
2. Check each for a legible mark.
3. Replace unmarked or repaired wood with treated, marked wood, or switch to plastic or metal.
4. Keep wood dry and give it air; hot, stacked wood invites mold.
5. Record the producer number from the mark on the packing paperwork.

Marked crates that brought equipment into the South Bay can usually go out again if the mark is legible and the wood intact, and so can Euro pallets and foreign skids from Santa Clara and North San Jose docks. Repaired wood cannot. For new wood, see heat-treated pallets.

Door11

Getting rid of a pile

Sort the pile by eye: sound pallets to sell, repairable ones to recycle and broken ones to clear.

Walk the pile for count, sizes and share broken, note the access (dock, forklift, ground level, storeroom) and whether it refills, and keep the stacks dry, stable and free of trash and strapping. An overstated count, broken pallets hidden at the bottom or an unmentioned locked gate stall a clearing. Do not burn pallets: many are treated, and treated wood may release harmful fumes.

Door12

Grades and food loads

• Grade A vs BHow to tell Grade A from Grade B: repairs, plugs, plates and deck boards, and which one a South Bay load actually needs.
• Pallets for food loadsClean, dry pallets for food: moisture below 20%, no mould, no loose nails, and what South County packers ask for.

Door14

Keep reading

• Grade A vs BHow to tell Grade A from Grade B: repairs, plugs, plates and deck boards, and which one a South Bay load actually needs.
• Pallet sizes and their footprintsEvery common pallet size drawn to scale with its footprint in square feet: 48x40, 48x48, 42x42, 48x45, 48x42 and the Euro pallet.
• Pallets for your outbound loadsSorted Grade A and B, combo, new, custom and heat-treated pallets for South Bay docks. Pick size and grade and send one buy request.
• Pallet buyers for South Bay docksSell surplus 48x40s, cores and odd sizes from South Bay docks. Tell us size, grade, count and how often, and send one request.