Work out chargeable weight for air freight, revenue tons for ocean LCL and density class for LTL truck, then price them with your own rate. Includes the W/M rule, the 6,000 cm³/kg air divisor and the 2025 NMFC density scale.
| Input | Result |
|---|---|
| air: four 60×40×40 cm cartons, 12 kg each, $4.50/kg | 64.00 kg chargeable, class n/a; estimated total $384.84 |
| ocean LCL: four 120×100×150 cm pallets, 320 kg each, $90/CBM | 7.20 CBM chargeable; estimated total $985.76 |
| LTL: two 48×40×48 in pallets, 800 lb each, $32/cwt | 15.00 lb/ft³ → class 70; estimated total $512.00 |
| Mode | Pivot | What governs on light cargo | Unit you are billed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Air freight | Volume in cm³ ÷ 6,000 gives a kilogram figure | Volume weight, and sharply | kg of chargeable weight |
| Ocean LCL | 1 cubic metre against 1 metric ton (1,000 kg) | Volume, usually | CBM, or revenue tons |
| LTL truck | Density in lb/ft³ sets the NMFC freight class | Weight, priced per 100 lb at the class rate | cwt (hundredweight) |
Air is the harshest of the three on bulky goods: the 6,000 cm³/kg divisor treats one cubic metre as 166.7 kg, while ocean LCL treats the same cubic metre as 1,000 kg before it even compares. That single difference is why the same shipment can be affordable by sea and absurd by air.
It will not quote you a freight rate, and that is deliberate. Rates are negotiated per lane and per account, move with fuel and capacity, and carry surcharges that are not published on any single page. A hard-coded rate would be wrong for almost everyone within weeks. What is arithmetic rather than negotiation is the chargeable quantity, the weight, cubic metres or hundredweight your rate gets multiplied by. Get that wrong and you cannot tell a fair quote from a padded one; get it right and every quote you receive can be checked in a minute.
Two conventions are used here and both come from published industry practice rather than carrier confidentiality. The air volumetric divisor of 6,000 cm³ per kilogram is the IATA standard, equivalent to 166.7 kg per cubic metre. The ocean LCL rule is W/M, weight or measurement, whichever is greater, with one cubic metre treated as one metric ton, subject to a minimum. On the truck side, the density scale used to derive the class is the thirteen-subprovision NMFC scale effective 19 July 2025.
Minimum charges. Most LCL tariffs set a floor of one cubic metre or one metric ton, and many LTL tariffs carry a per-shipment minimum. On small shipments the floor, not the arithmetic, is what you pay.
Fixed fees are not proportional. Origin and destination handling, documentation and customs brokerage are charged per shipment, so they fall hardest on small consignments and dilute as volume grows. Enter them in the fees field to see the true per-unit picture.
Measurement is redone at the terminal. Consolidators and carriers remeasure and reweigh, and their figures go on the invoice. Measurements taken over the pallet and over any overhang are the ones that survive.
Fuel and seasonal surcharges. Published as percentages that change monthly. The surcharge field here takes whatever your quote states, so the estimate tracks it instead of guessing.
Not a quote, and not official. This is an independent calculator with no affiliation to any carrier, consolidator or forwarder. Numbers here are estimates built from the quantities you enter and the rate you supply; only your carrier’s invoice is authoritative.
Because the two compare a cubic metre against different amounts of weight. Air divides volume by 6,000 cm³ per kg, so one cubic metre becomes 166.7 chargeable kg. Ocean LCL uses the W/M rule and treats one cubic metre as equivalent to 1,000 kg, six times as much. The ocean carrier therefore only starts billing on volume when it is worth more than a tonne per cubic metre, which most cargo never reaches. Air, by contrast, bills on volume the moment the freight is lighter than about 167 kg per cubic metre.
Chargeable weight is whatever the carrier prices: the greater of what your shipment weighs and the weight its volume “should” have had. Light and bulky cargo occupies space that cannot be sold to anyone else, so carriers replace it with a notional weight. On air freight that notional figure is volume in cm³ divided by 6,000; on ocean LCL it is cubic metres measured against tonnes. If actual weight governs, the goods are dense enough to be paying their way.
Multiply length by width by height in centimetres to get cubic centimetres, that is the figure before any division. Divide it by 6,000 and you have the volumetric weight in kilograms. For four 60×40×40 cm cartons the volume is 384,000 cm³, which is 64 kg of volumetric weight. If the cartons actually weigh 48 kg between them, you are billed on 64 kg; if they weigh 80 kg, you are billed on 80 kg.
Yes, in every mode. Carriers measure and reweigh the shipment as presented, including the pallet deck, packaging and any overhang. On LTL this also decides which class you get, because density is weight over volume; a standard deck is about 5.5 in tall and quietly adds cubic feet. On air and ocean the same applies, and consolidators routinely remeasure at the terminal, so optimistic dimensions come back as a corrected invoice.
It is priced per hundredweight (cwt) rather than per kilogram or per cubic metre, and the rate depends on the freight class you land in. Class comes from density using the NMFC scale effective 19 July 2025, which runs from class 400 for the lightest freight down to class 50 for the densest. Two pallets of identical size can be billed at very different rates purely because one weighs more than the other, which is why measuring density accurately is a pricing issue, not a paperwork one.
No, and it deliberately does not try. Freight rates are negotiated per lane and per account and change with capacity, fuel and season, so any figure printed here would be wrong for nearly everyone. What it gives you is the chargeable quantity and a cost built from the rate you enter, which is the part you can verify yourself. Use it to sanity-check the quote you were given: if a quote comes in far above your estimate at the same rate, the difference is in a surcharge, a minimum charge or a reclassified freight class.