How much does pallet storage cost in the UK?

Pallet storage with SFI costs from £4.95 per pallet per week. That's about £21 a month to keep a pallet of stock in our warehouse, booked in, recorded and ready to go back out when you need it.

If you've never used pallet storage before, the pricing can look confusing at first. Warehouses talk about pallet spaces, handling in and handling out, and it isn't always obvious what the weekly rate covers and what it doesn't.

We've been storing and moving goods for UK businesses for more than 30 years, so if you're looking for a reliable partner for pallet storage, get in touch with SFI today.

What is pallet storage?

Pallet storage means keeping your stock in a warehouse on pallets, these are the flat wooden or plastic bases you'll see goods stacked and wrapped on in the back of most lorries. You pay for the number of pallets you're storing, rather than renting a whole unit or a fixed area of floor.

Stock goes on pallets because it can then be lifted, moved and stored by forklift, which is quicker and safer than carrying boxes around by hand. A standard UK pallet measures 1200 x 1000mm, and the space one loaded pallet takes up in a warehouse is known as a pallet space. When a warehouse quotes you a pallet storage rate, that's usually what you're paying for.

When your pallets arrive, they're unloaded, checked, recorded and put away. From then on, the warehouse knows what you've got and where it is, so when you need stock sent out, someone can find it, bring it down and load it without anyone having to go looking.

How much does pallet storage cost?

Pallet storage at SFI costs from £4.95 per pallet per week. Most warehouses price by the week, but most businesses budget by the month, so here's how that rate works out:

Number of pallets	Per week	Per month (approx.)	Per year (approx.)
1	From £4.95	£21.45	£257.40
10	From £49.50	£214.50	£2,574
50	From £247.50	£1,072.50	£12,870

To work out a rough figure for your own stock, multiply the number of pallets by the weekly rate and then by the number of weeks you'll need the space. If you had 20 pallets of goods to hold for six weeks while a customer gets their site ready, for example, the storage would come to £594.

That's the cost of the space. Getting the pallets in and out of the warehouse is a separate part of the job, and it's worth understanding before you compare prices.

 

What else might you pay for besides the weekly rate?

 

As well as the storage rate, most warehouses charge for handling, which is the work of getting your goods in and out. People new to pallet storage are often caught out by this, because the weekly figure is the one that gets advertised.

The charges you're most likely to come across are:

• Handling in: Unloading your delivery, checking it against the paperwork, recording what's arrived and putting it away. You'll also hear this called goods-in.
• Handling out: Finding your pallets, bringing them down and loading them onto the vehicle that's collecting or delivering them.
• Container unloading: If your stock arrives loose in a shipping container rather than on pallets, every carton has to be unloaded by hand. It takes far longer than lifting pallets off a lorry, so it's usually priced separately. The trade term is devanning.
• Palletising: Building loose cartons onto pallets and wrapping them so they're safe to store and move.
• Picking orders: If you want individual items sent out rather than full pallets, that becomes a pick and pack service.
• Transport: Delivery to your customers or collection from your supplier.

Which of these matter most depends on how your stock moves. If pallets come in once and sit for three months, nearly all your cost will be storage. If stock is coming in and going out every week, handling can add up to more than the space itself, so a cheap weekly rate on its own doesn't tell you much.

The best thing you can do is give a warehouse an honest idea of how often your stock will move and ask them to price the whole job. We've written more about avoiding unexpected costs when outsourcing logistics if this is your first time handing stock to someone else.

 

What affects the cost of pallet storage?

 

The main things that change what you'll pay are the size and weight of your pallets, how many you have, how long you need them stored and how often you'll need access to them.

Height catches a lot of people out. Warehouses work to a maximum pallet height, and a pallet that's been stacked too tall may need to be split or may take up more than one space. Goods that can't have anything placed on top of them can use more room than their footprint suggests, too.

Other things worth bearing in mind:

• Volume and duration: A large amount of stock held for a few months is often priced differently from a few pallets stored for a fortnight.
• How busy the stock is: Pallets nobody touches need very little looking after, while stock you're drawing from every few days keeps people and forklifts busy.
• Heavy, bulky or awkward goods: Some items need more space, more care or specialist handling to move safely.
• Fragile or high-value stock: It takes more care to handle, and you'll want to talk to your insurer about cover before it goes anywhere.
• How it arrives: Pallets that turn up wrapped and labelled are quick to book in. Loose cartons and unlabelled stock take longer.

 

What is pallet storage used for?

 

Most businesses use pallet storage because they have more stock than space, either all the time or for a few weeks or months of the year. The reasons behind it vary a lot, and the ones we hear most often are:

Seasonal peaks: Stock has to be bought in or made well before the busy period, and it needs somewhere to sit until it sells.

Production running ahead of orders: Manufacturers often finish goods before the customer is ready for them, and the finished stock starts creeping into space the production line needs.

Delayed projects: Equipment or furniture is ready on time, but the site it's going to isn't, so it needs holding for a few weeks.

Big deliveries landing at once: A container or a bulk order arrives in one go, and there's no room at your own premises to take all of it.

Running out of room for good: Some businesses outgrow their space and find it easier to keep part of their stock elsewhere than to move premises.

Selling online: Stock is kept in the warehouse and individual orders are picked and sent out from there.

For the short-term situations, overflow warehouse storage is usually the answer. If you've got stock arriving faster than customers are ready to take it, you don't necessarily need a bigger permanent warehouse. Often you just need somewhere to hold the extra for a while, then call it back when it's needed.

Pallet storage isn't only for boxed products, either. Flat-packed and boxed furniture is regularly palletised and stored ahead of office, hotel and retail fit-outs, where it's kept until the installers need it. Our furniture warehousing page explains how that works.

 

How do you work out how many pallets you need?

 

Start from your cartons rather than from how much floor your stock covers at the moment. Stock spread around your own unit is hard to judge by eye, and the number of pallets it needs can look very different once it's been stacked properly.

1. Measure one of your cartons and check how much it weighs.
2. Work out how many cartons fit on one layer of a 1200 x 1000mm pallet without hanging over the edges.
3. Work out how many layers you can stack before you reach the warehouse's height limit, and check the bottom cartons can take the weight of everything above them.
4. Multiply cartons per layer by the number of layers to get cartons per pallet, then divide your total by that and round up.
5. Add a pallet for any product you'll need sent out on its own.

As an example, cartons measuring 600 x 400mm fit five to a layer on a standard pallet. Stack them six layers high and you've got 30 cartons per pallet, so 900 cartons would need 30 pallets.

That last step is worth thinking about. Mixing multiple products on one pallet looks like it saves space, but when you need one of those products by itself, someone has to break the pallet down to get to it. On stock that moves regularly, keeping each product on its own pallets from the start usually saves money in the long run.

If you're not sure, send us your carton sizes and quantities and we'll help you work it out.

 

Is pallet storage cheaper than renting your own warehouse?

 

If your stock levels go up and down, pallet storage is usually the cheaper option, because you're paying each week for the pallets you actually have. Taking on your own building means committing to a lease for years, then paying for business rates, staff, racking, forklifts and insurance on top, including in the quiet months when half the space is empty.

That doesn't make it right for everyone. If you've got a steady, high volume of stock that would keep a building full all year, running your own warehouse can make more sense. It mostly comes down to how predictable your stock is.

Self storage is another option people look at, and it can work for a small amount of boxed stock. The trouble is that many self storage units aren't set up for pallets, so you won't usually get forklifts, goods-in checks or any record of what's in there. Our guide to self storage vs warehouse storage goes through the differences in more detail.

 

What should you ask before booking pallet storage?

 

Ask enough to know what the whole job will cost and how you'll keep track of your stock once it's out of your hands. These are the questions we'd ask if we were in your position:

• Is the price per pallet per week, and does it include VAT?
• What's the maximum height and weight for one pallet space?
• What do you charge for handling in and handling out?
• Is there a minimum number of pallets or a minimum term?
• What happens if our stock arrives loose rather than on pallets?
• How will we know what's in stock and what's been sent out?
• How much notice do you need before stock goes out?
• What insurance covers our goods while they're stored and while they're moving?

Knowing what you've got in the warehouse matters as much as the price. If you can't quickly find out how many pallets you have and what's on them, a cheap rate stops looking cheap the first time a customer order is held up, which is why stock management and visibility should be part of the conversation from the start.

 

Talk to SFI about pallet storage

 

If you've got stock that needs a home, whether it's for a few weeks or longer, tell us roughly how many pallets you have, how they'll arrive and how long you need them stored.

We'll talk you through the options and what it would cost, handling included.

Get a pallet storage quote from SFI.