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RePalletUSA · Columbus OH
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Tool 03 · interactive

The unit price is not where your money goes.

Pallet budgets are built on the number that appears on the invoice, which in a full-cost view is usually between a third and a half of the total. This models the rest — and holds the unit price constant so you can see that none of the saving comes from squeezing a supplier.
Warehouse interior with pallets sorted by type — natural wood, blue pooled units, black plastic and EPAL stamped stacks
SegregationSorted by type, not by convenience. Pooled units go back to the pool; plastic runs a separate stream entirely.

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

We reply by email, so this needs to be a working address.

US or Canadian 10-digit number. Formats itself as you type.

Two-letter code or full name.

US ZIP (43217) or Canadian postal code (K1A 0B1).

Whole units, digits only.

No phone number required from us — we quote by email so you have the numbers in writing.

Recycling yard with a steel bin full of broken pallet wood, a grinder conveyor, stacks of pallets and a forklift beyond

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

LineUnmanagedManagedChange
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.

Where the money leaks
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

Pull twelve months of pallet purchases, removal invoices and freight and put them on one page. Most organisations have never seen those three numbers together, and the exercise usually identifies the answer on its own.

Then measure your loss rate

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.

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