Tool 03 · interactive
The unit price is not where your money goes.
Send us your invoices instead
Twelve months of purchase and removal invoices and we will build the real number for you, free, whether or not you go further with us.
- Written quotes, usually inside one business day
- Loads from 100 pallets to full 53' trailers
- We buy as readily as we sell — tell us which way it flows
The last four per cent
Everything the sort deck rejected, on its way to the grinder. It leaves as mulch, bedding and boiler fibre — not as landfill.
Total cost calculator
What pallets actually cost you.
Unit price is where everyone looks and it is rarely where the money is. Set your own numbers; every assumption is listed below the table.
Annual total, unmanaged
$608,516
$15 per pallet, all in
Managed
$400,239
−34% · $208,278 a year
| Line | Unmanaged | Managed | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pallet purchases | $388,240 | $341,504 | −$46,736 |
| Emergency premium | $20,240 | $0 | −$20,240 |
| Repair programme | $0 | $7,920 | +$7,920 |
| Removal of damaged units | $2,036 | $815 | −$1,222 |
| Core sales credit | $0 | $-49,000 | −$49,000 |
| Handling (forklift time) | $198,000 | $99,000 | −$99,000 |
| Total | $608,516 | $400,239 | −$208,278 |
Notice that the unit price is identical in both columns. Every dollar of the difference comes from eliminating emergency buying, repairing instead of replacing, capturing core value and touching the pallets one fewer time.
Assumptions used in the managed column
- Emergency purchases fall to zero because a buffer covers the gap.
- 60% of damaged units are repaired at $2.75 rather than replaced — 2,880 units at your damage rate.
- 35% of the annual population is sold back as whole cores at the core value you set.
- Removal is $140 per trailer of 330 units for material with no resale value.
- Handling is 2.2 minutes per touch at a loaded forklift cost of $45 an hour, with one and a half touches removed by a fixed collection slot.
- No change to the unit price, because that is not where the money is.
A supplier promising thirty per cent off your unit price is either cutting the grade or pricing to win a first year. Pallet margins are thin and there is not thirty per cent in them.
The costs that do have room in them are operational, which is inconvenient — they are yours to fix rather than your supplier’s — and also good news, because they do not require anyone else’s agreement.
Start with the emergency line. It needs no capital, no process change and no new vendor: just a buffer and an agreement about who watches the count.
Do this before anything else
Then measure your loss rate
Questions
Reading the model.
Why does the calculator hold the unit price constant?
So that none of the saving it shows can come from squeezing a supplier. Pallet margins are thin; anyone promising thirty per cent off your unit price is either cutting the grade or pricing to win a first year. Every dollar this model finds is operational.
What numbers do I need before I can use it?
Four: pallets a year, your unit price, roughly what share gets bought in a hurry, and your damage rate. Estimate them and the shape of the answer still holds. If you would rather not, send twelve months of purchase and removal invoices and we will build the real number for you, free.
What is the managed column actually assuming?
Four changes: no emergency premium, sixty per cent of damaged units repaired at $2.75 rather than replaced, whole cores sold back instead of paid for as removal, and one fewer forklift touch per pallet. Handling is costed at 2.2 minutes a touch on a $45 an hour loaded forklift rate.
Which line usually has the most money in it?
Emergency purchases — running short on a Friday and paying spot prices. Then loss rate, freight, double handling and grade mismatch. Unit price negotiation typically ranks fifth or sixth, which is the opposite of where most pallet review meetings start.
I do not know my loss rate. How do I find it?
Count out, count in, count what is left, for four weeks. It is the highest-value hour of arithmetic available in pallet management and almost nobody has done it. There is a short guide to the count if you want the method rather than the summary.