Custom Size Pallets

When a standard pallet stops working

Standard GMA 48x40 stock is the bulk of the range, and for most businesses that is the right answer: it is the cheapest pallet to buy, the easiest to replace, and the one every receiving dock in the country already knows what to do with. A custom size is worth paying for only when the standard one is actively costing you something, and it usually shows up in one of a few ways.

The product overhangs. Anything hanging off the edge of a pallet takes the impact of every forklift, doorway and trailer wall it passes, and the damage lands on the goods rather than the wood. The product under-fills. A small, heavy item sitting in the middle of a standard deck wastes the trailer space around it and moves in transit unless somebody blocks it out by hand every time. The rack does not agree with the pallet, so a footprint that is right on the floor is wrong the moment it goes into a beam. Or the pallet has to fit something else entirely: a machine base, a piece of fabricated steel, a shipping container laid out to the inch, an automated line with an entry width it will not negotiate over.

Where the problem is condition or budget rather than fit, a custom build is the wrong tool and a graded standard pallet is the right one. Our pallet supply service covers Grade A and Grade B stock and heat treated pallets, and the current range is listed on the product range page. It is worth ruling that out before you specify a build.

What to send us when you ask for a custom size

A custom quote is only as good as what it is quoted against, and the single thing that slows one down is a request with the dimensions and nothing else. The more of the list below you can send in one go, the sooner you get a firm price and a date rather than a phone call asking for the rest of it.

• The footprint you need, length by width, and whether that is a hard constraint or your best guess at one.
• What is going on it. The product, roughly what it weighs, and how it sits: one solid unit, several stacked layers, or something awkward that needs support in a particular place.
• How it will be handled. Forklift, pallet truck or both, and which sides the driver will come in from. That is what decides entry, not the footprint.
• Where it has to fit. Racking, a trailer, a container, an automated line, or a customer's dock with its own rules. Give us the opening it has to pass through and the height you are working to.
• Whether it comes back. A pallet that stays in your own building is a different build from one that leaves on a truck and is never seen again.
• Quantity and how often. A one-off run and a repeating monthly order are priced and scheduled differently.

If you have a drawing, a photograph of the load on its current pallet, or a spec from the customer at the other end, send that too. It answers more questions than a description usually does. We do not publish weight figures against our stock, so tell us the weight and how it will be handled and we will talk it through with you rather than point you at a number.

How the quote and the build work

Send the specification through the quote request form or call it in, whichever is quicker for you. We come back with a price against the spec as we have understood it, written out, so you can check that we read it the way you meant it before anything is built. If something in the brief is going to cause a problem, you hear it at that point rather than after delivery: a footprint that will not sit in the rack you have described, or an entry a pallet truck will not manage.

Once the spec is agreed, custom builds typically run one to two weeks depending on complexity and quantity. That is the figure to plan against, and it is why a custom order needs more notice than a stock order: standard pallets go out same week across Metro Atlanta and West Georgia, and a custom run does not. If you are working to a fixed date at the other end, say so when you send the spec rather than when you chase it.

On quantity, the same rule applies as everywhere else on the site: there is no hard minimum order, but around fifty pallets is the point where a dedicated delivery starts to make economic sense. Below that we will usually look at combining your drop with another in your area, or arranging collection from our yard.

How custom sizes fit with supply and removal

Very few businesses run custom pallets alone. The normal pattern is a custom size for the one product that needs it and standard graded stock for everything else, on one account and one delivery schedule, which is worth saying out loud because it keeps you off two suppliers and two invoices for what is really one job.

The other half is what comes back. A custom pallet that stays in your building has a long life and gets repaired rather than replaced; a custom pallet that leaves on a truck does not come back at all, which is a real cost and worth knowing before you commit to the size. Either way the standard pallets arriving underneath everyone else's deliveries still accumulate, and our pallet removal service clears them on a schedule that fits your dock, repairs what can be repaired and recycles most of the rest.

We build for customers across Metro Atlanta and West Georgia from our yard in Winston. Custom work turns up most often in manufacturing, which is why a lot of it goes out through the Carrollton delivery area and the assembly base covered by the Newnan supply area. The full list is on the service areas page, and we cover more of the region than we have written pages for.