What information do you need for a pallet freight quote?

Weight, dimensions and piece count; both full addresses; the date the freight is ready; what the goods actually are; and how a truck gets loaded and unloaded at each end. That last one is the most commonly skipped and the most expensive to get wrong. Cross-border shipments add two more: who handles customs, and who pays the duties.

Every carrier asks for roughly the same things, in a different order, using slightly different words. If you gather it once before you start, you can quote a shipment with four providers in the time it usually takes to go back and forth with one.

This is that list. It's vendor-neutral — nothing here is specific to any one provider, including us.

The freight itself

• Number of pieces. How many separate handling units. Three pallets is three pieces, even if it's one order.
• Weight. Per piece if they differ, total if they don't. Note your unit — kilograms, pounds, tonnes — because a number without a unit gets assumed, and the assumption is sometimes wrong by a factor of two.
• Dimensions. Length by width by height, per piece. Measure the loaded pallet, not the pallet: overhang counts, and so does the height of whatever is stacked on it.
• Packaging type. Pallet, crate, box, drum, or loose. Loose freight — anything not on a pallet or in a crate — is handled differently and priced differently.
• Stackable or not. Whether a carrier can put another pallet on top of yours. This directly affects how much of the truck your shipment consumes, so it directly affects the price.

A note on dimensions, because it's the single most common source of a revised invoice: freight is priced on the space it occupies as well as what it weighs. A light, bulky pallet can cost more than a heavy, compact one. Guessing low doesn't save money, it just moves the charge to after the freight has been measured at a depot.

Where it's going

• Both full addresses. Street, city, region or state, postcode, country. Postcode matters more than people expect — it's often what determines the rate zone and whether the address counts as remote.
• Company name at each end. It's how the driver finds the right entrance on a business park.
• A contact name, phone and email at each end. Specifically someone who will answer on the day, not the person arranging the shipment.
• Opening hours at each end. A site that closes at 3pm and a driver arriving at 4pm is a failed delivery and a redelivery charge.

Access — the part people skip

This is the section that decides whether the price you're quoted is the price you pay. Answer it for both ends separately. They're rarely the same.

• Is there a loading dock? If yes, most of this section stops mattering.
• Is there a forklift on site, and will someone operate it?
• If there's neither, does the truck need a liftgate — a powered platform that lowers freight to the ground?
• Is a pallet jack needed, and does the site have one?
• Is the address residential, or does it look residential to a driver? Home businesses count.
• Is access restricted in any way — a narrow approach, a height limit, a gated site, a school, a construction site, a farm?
• Does the site require a booked appointment before a truck can arrive?

Every one of those has a name and a price in a carrier's tariff. Declaring them upfront usually costs less than having them discovered, because a driver who arrives at a site he can't service has already been paid for the trip.

Timing

The date the freight is genuinely ready — not the date you'd like it to arrive, and not the date you hope to have it packed. If it's ready on the Thursday, say Thursday. A collection attempt on freight that isn't ready is a wasted trip that someone pays for.

If collection can only happen inside a particular window, say so at quote time rather than at booking. It can change which carrier is viable.

What's actually on the pallet

A plain description of the commodity. Not a product code, not an internal SKU — words a stranger can understand. “Boxed ceramic tiles”, “packaged food ingredients, ambient”, “machine parts, steel”.

Carriers need it for three reasons: some goods are restricted or need special handling, the description affects classification and therefore price, and a vague description is the fastest route to a re-quote. If you have an HS code, include it — it's optional for a domestic move and useful the moment a border is involved.

Say so explicitly if the goods are fragile, need to stay upright, must stay dry, or need to stay inside a temperature range. If it's temperature controlled, give the actual range and the unit rather than “chilled”.

If it crosses a border

Two questions become unavoidable, and they're about responsibility rather than paperwork:

• Who is handling customs? Your own broker, or one arranged for you. Someone has to be named.
• Who pays duties and taxes? The shipper or the consignee. Getting this wrong produces an unexpected bill for whoever receives the goods, and a difficult conversation with a customer.

You'll also be asked for Incoterms — the standard three-letter codes that define where your responsibility ends and the buyer's begins. If you don't know, DAP is a common default for door deliveries, but it's worth understanding rather than guessing: FOB and CIF are port-handoff terms and don't sit naturally on a door-to-door address.

Optional, but worth having

• Declared value of the goods. It's shared with the carriers handling the shipment, and it matters if you're arranging cargo insurance separately.
• Whether the site has any equipment or process quirk a driver should know about in advance.
• Your reference number, so the eventual invoice matches your own paperwork without detective work.

Gather it once

Put all of the above in one document before you contact anyone. Send the same document to every provider you're quoting. You'll get faster replies, and — more usefully — you'll get quotes that are genuinely comparable, because everyone priced the same job.

That last point is the whole reason this list is worth the twenty minutes. Most of the confusion in comparing freight quotes traces back to carriers having been told different things, and it's fixed at this end rather than at that one.