Getting a pallet moved isn't complicated, but getting a useful quote depends almost entirely on describing the job properly. Carriers price what they're told. Leave out the fact that there's no dock at the delivery end and the number you were quoted stops being the number you pay.
Below is what Reddlaw actually asks for, and why each piece matters. Pallet freight here can be domestic or international — the platform plans the legs from the lane, so a pallet crossing a city and a pallet crossing an ocean start from the same form.
If you have a packing list and the two addresses, you have most of it.
The pallets themselves. Number of pieces, weight, and length by width by height. Weight takes kg, lb, t or ton and dimensions take cm, in, m or ft, so you can enter whatever your paperwork already says rather than converting first. Packaging is a choice between pallet, crate, box, loose, drum or something you type in yourself. And whether the load is stackable, which decides whether a carrier can put anything on top of it.
If every pallet is identical you can enter totals instead of listing them one by one. Per-item detail gives carriers exact piece information; totals is faster for a straightforward palletised load.
Where it goes. Both addresses. Street address, city and country are required at each end; unit or suite, region or state, postcode and the receiver’s company name are there when you need them. The address field suggests as you type and keeps the coordinates, which is what lets the platform work out the lane rather than guess at it.
When. The date the freight is ready, and optionally the window during the day when it can be collected.
What’s on the pallet. A plain description of the commodity — this one is required, because a carrier quoting blind is a carrier who will re-quote later. An HS code and a declared value are optional. Declared value is shared with the carriers handling the shipment; it isn’t used for anything else.
How it needs to be treated. Fragile, keep upright, keep dry, high value, or temperature sensitive — and if it’s temperature sensitive, the range it has to stay inside. You can enter that in Celsius or Fahrenheit.
We made many of the fields here mandatory because these are the hidden items that cause extra charges.
A pallet that can be rolled off at a loading dock and a pallet that has to come off a truck at the kerb are two different jobs, and carriers price them differently. Reddlaw asks about both ends separately.
None of this is bureaucracy. It’s the difference between a quote that holds and a quote that gets revised once the driver arrives.
Two more questions become required, and they're about responsibility rather than paperwork.
You’ll be asked who is handling customs — your own broker, or Reddlaw assigning one — and who pays duties and taxes, the shipper or the consignee. You’ll also pick Incoterms, which default to DAP; DDP, EXW, FOB and CIF are the other options. Choose FOB or CIF on a door-to-door address and the form will say so, because those two are normally port-handoff terms.
To be clear about what that means: if you don’t have a broker, Reddlaw assigns one, so customs is arranged rather than left with you. What Reddlaw isn’t is a licensed customs broker itself — the platform captures that your booking needs clearance and who owns it, and the clearance is done by the professional who holds the licence. Cargo insurance is the one thing we don’t arrange at this time; if you want coverage, arrange it directly or confirm it with your carrier.
The platform fee is charged at submission, before any sourcing starts, and it covers the work below whether or not you accept what comes back.
The platform identifies carriers that cover the route and contacts them. If the first wave doesn't produce enough, it goes wider rather than waiting.
Replies come back in every format a person can invent. They get read, normalised and lined up so the numbers actually mean the same thing.
Someone reviews the candidates and picks the one that gets presented. You accept it or you don't.
Carriers are notified, documents are collected in one place, and stalled milestones or quiet tracking get raised rather than discovered.
Related: shipping a container, freight in Australia, freight without a logistics team, and how it works. If something about your load doesn’t fit the form, tell us — unusual is normal.
Two longer reads, written vendor-neutrally: what information you need for a pallet freight quote is the same checklist framed as what to gather before you ask anyone, and do I need a freight forwarder to move a pallet? answers the question most people ask first.