01
Dumpstering pallets
A 40-yard roll-off costs $450–$900, holds about 120 pallets and returns nothing. The same 120 pallets sold as cores return around $480.
FixOne email. The swing is over a thousand dollars per container.
01What your pallets are worth
Core pricing is a live market, but the ranking rarely changes. Size drives most of the value, condition drives the rest, and contamination destroys it.
| What you have | Typical value per unit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 48x40 GMA, A/B condition | $4.00–$6.50 | The most liquid item in the market |
| 48x40 GMA, damaged | $1.60–$3.00 | Still worth money — the boards have value |
| 48x48, 42x42, 40x48 | $2.20–$4.50 | Good demand, thinner market |
| Block pallets / 1200x800 | $3.50–$7.00 | Strong demand, limited supply |
| Odd and custom sizes | $0.60–$1.80 | Priced as fibre, not as pallets |
| Painted or branded | $0.40–$1.50 | Ownership questions and resale limits |
| Contaminated (chemical, food spill) | $0 | We will still remove it — see below |
02How a sale runs
- Tell us what you have. Rough count, sizes, condition, whether it is one pile or many. Photos help more than words.
- We quote per unit or per load. Per-unit for consistent stock; per-load for genuinely mixed piles where counting is a fiction.
- We schedule. A trailer is dropped, or a live load is booked around your dock hours.
- You load, or we do. Most sites load with their own forklift. Where they cannot, we bring labour.
- Payment on collection. Terms are agreed before the truck rolls, not after.
For sites generating pallets every week, a standing route is cheaper for both sides and gets you a better per-unit number. Ask about pallet management if the volume is meaningful.
03The economics people miss
A 40-yard roll-off of pallets costs $450–$900 to haul and dump, holds roughly 120 pallets, and produces zero revenue. The same 120 pallets sold as cores at $4.00 return $480. The swing between those two outcomes is over a thousand dollars per container, and it is entirely a phone-call decision — or in our case, an email one.
- Cost to dumpster a roll-off of pallets
- $450–900Cost to dumpster a roll-off of pallets
- Value of the same load sold as cores
- $480+Value of the same load sold as cores
- Typical swing per container
- ~$1,100Typical swing per container
By the numbers
The figures worth remembering
Four numbers that decide most of what follows on this page.
- Typical core value per unit
- $1.10–6.50Typical core value per unit
- Units that justify a dedicated truck
- ~250Units that justify a dedicated truck
- Cost to dumpster one roll-off of pallets
- $450–900Cost to dumpster one roll-off of pallets
- Typical swing per container, dumpster vs sale
- ~$1,100Typical swing per container, dumpster vs sale
Rules of thumb
Carry these in your head
- 01Idle pallets are a fire load and a cost. They are also an asset.
- 02Scheduled collection costs 30–45% less per unit than on-call.
- 03Payment terms are agreed before the truck rolls, not after.
- 04If your dock is genuinely blocked, say so — we would rather reshuffle a route.
Before you order
The decisions we will ask you to make
A quote turnaround is limited by how many follow-up questions we have to ask. Working through this list removes nearly all of them.
- 01
Rough count and sizes
Photos help more than words. A photo of the pile answers three questions at once.
- 02
Condition mix
Include the broken ones. They still have board and fibre value and leaving them out just leaves you a pile.
- 03
Pooled pallets
Blue CHEP, red PECO, white iGPS are not yours to sell. We sort them out free and arrange their return.
- 04
Contamination history
If a pallet held a chemical spill, say so. It changes the route entirely.
- 05
Loading capability
Own forklift, or do we bring labour? Say at quote stage, not at the gate.
- 06
Frequency
Weekly volume gets a standing route, which is cheaper for both sides and pays you more per unit.
What goes wrong
Expensive mistakes, and the fix for each
Every one of these turns up in ordinary purchase orders. All of them cost multiples of whatever they appeared to save.
02
Sorting out the damaged ones first
Damaged pallets still contain recoverable deck boards and stringers, and whatever cannot be reused becomes fibre.
FixSell the whole load. There is then nothing left to pay someone else to remove.
03
Selling branded pool pallets
They remain the property of the pooling company. Anyone who buys them is handling goods that were not theirs to sell.
FixHave them sorted out and returned. Reputable buyers do this at no charge.
Side by side
What your pallets are worth
| What you have | Typical value per unit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 48x40 GMA, A/B condition | $4.00–$6.50 | The most liquid item in the market |
| 48x40 GMA, damaged | $1.60–$3.00 | Still worth money — the boards have value |
| 48x48, 42x42, 40x48 | $2.20–$4.50 | Good demand, thinner market |
| Block pallets / 1200x800 | $3.50–$7.00 | Strong demand, limited supply |
| Odd and custom sizes | $0.60–$1.80 | Priced as fibre, not as pallets |
| Painted or branded | $0.40–$1.50 | Ownership questions and resale limits |
| Contaminated | $0 | Removed, but not purchased |
Against our interest
When this is the wrong answer
We would rather lose the order than sell you the wrong thing. These are the situations where this page is not what you need.
- 01
Pooled pallets
Blue CHEP, red PECO and white iGPS remain the property of the pooling company. Selling them is disposing of somebody else's asset, and no reputable buyer will take them.
- 02
Chemically contaminated wood
It cannot enter the fibre stream and it has no core value. We will still remove it, but as controlled disposal rather than a purchase.
- 03
Loads under about 250 units on a remote site
Below that a dedicated truck cannot be justified. Ask about joining an existing route — it costs nothing to check.
What moves the price
Cost drivers, and roughly how much each one is worth
A quote is not a list price with a discount applied. It is these variables added up, which is why two quotes for nominally the same thing can differ so widely.
| Driver | What it is | Rough effect |
|---|---|---|
| Footprint | 48x40 GMA is the most liquid item in the market; odd sizes are priced as fibre. | $0.60 to $6.50 per unit |
| Condition mix | Repairable stock is worth several times what broken stock is, though broken stock still has value. | 2–4× between grades |
| Route position | A site on an existing lane is worth more per unit than an isolated one. | Can decide whether a load is viable at all |
| Loading capability | Self-loading with your own forklift against us bringing labour. | Labour cost comes off the price |
Due diligence
Questions to ask any supplier
Us included. The answers tell you a great deal, and so does how quickly they arrive — a yard that has these documents ready is a yard that has thought about them.
- 01
“What will you pay per unit, and is that net of haulage?”
- 02
“Do you take the broken ones too, or leave me a pile?”
- 03
“How do you handle pooled pallets found in the load?”
- 04
“When is payment made — on collection or on terms?”
- 05
“Can we move to a scheduled route, and what does that change?”
The rulebook
Standards and authorities that actually apply
Plenty of pallet marketing invokes standards loosely. These are the real documents behind this subject, and what each one does and does not cover.
- Pooling company ownership
CHEP, PECO and iGPS pallets are rental assets. Their terms govern, and they run recovery programmes to get them back.
- State scrap and recycling regulation
Some states regulate the purchase of recovered materials, including record-keeping on transactions.
- RCRA / state hazardous waste rules
Determine the route for chemically contaminated wood, which cannot be recycled as fibre.
- Weighbridge records
Not a standard, but the evidence base. Any diversion figure you report later has to reconcile to them.
Vocabulary
The terms used on this page
Defined the way the trade uses them, not the way a dictionary would.
- Core
- An as-collected used pallet — unsorted, unrepaired and ungraded. Raw material rather than a product, and priced accordingly.
- Pooling
- A rental model where a third party owns the pallets and charges per trip. CHEP, PECO and iGPS are the major North American pools.
- Remanufactured pallet
- A pallet rebuilt from recovered components, often to a different size than the original. Distinct from a repaired pallet.
- Grade C
- Structurally sound but cosmetically rough. Suitable for floor-stacked storage and one-way freight; never for racking.
From the journal
Longer reading on this subject
Written by the people who grade, repair and haul the wood — including the articles that argue against buying from us.
Sustainability8 min readLena Brandt
What actually happens to a pallet after it leaves your dock
Most people who sell us pallets have never seen what happens next. It is a five-tier hierarchy, and about 41% of everything we collect never needs a repair at all.
Read
- recycling
- circular economy
- diversion
Logistics6 min readTom Okafor
Backhaul pairing: how empty miles set your pallet price
The cheapest mile in trucking is the one that was going to be driven anyway. Most pallet buyers are sitting next to one and have never mentioned it.
Read
- freight
- routes
- cost
Sustainability7 min readLena Brandt
What a 92% diversion rate actually measures
Any number you cannot interrogate is a marketing claim. Here is exactly how ours is built, including the part that does not flatter us.
Read
- diversion
- reporting
- ESG
Questions
Answers to what buyers actually ask
Straight answers, including the ones that cost us the sale.
How much will you pay for my pallets?
Between $1.10 and $6.50 per unit for most stock, with 48x40 GMA at the top of the range and odd sizes at the bottom. Volume, condition mix and how far you are from a route all move the number. Send a count and a photo and we will quote a real figure, not a range.
Do you take broken pallets?
Yes, and we pay for them. A broken pallet still contains recoverable deck boards and stringers, and whatever cannot be reused becomes fibre. Leaving damaged pallets out of the load to 'keep the quality up' just leaves you a pile to pay someone else to remove.
What is the minimum load?
About 250 units to justify a truck. Below that, we can often add you to an existing route in your area — ask, because it costs nothing to check and route density is what makes small loads viable.
Can you take CHEP or PECO pallets?
No. Those remain the property of the pooling company and buying them would be handling stolen goods. We sort them out of your load at no charge and can arrange collection by the relevant pooler.
How quickly can you collect?
Within our regular route territory, usually 2–5 working days. If a dock is genuinely blocked we will prioritise it, and we would rather hear that up front than find out when the driver arrives.