If you aren’t already using a cube density calculator, you might not be sure how to estimate shipping costs, making it hard to plan for the cost of shipping deliveries to customers.
Without accurate estimates, you may not be able to effectively plan for the future or deliver on customers’ ongoing expectations. You’ll never have to worry about going over your Less than Truckload (LTL) carrier’s limits when you plan in advance by using an LTL density calculator.
On this page, we’ll give you a cubic foot calculator that you can use to calculate the cubic volume of your shipping. By the time you finish reading, you’ll know exactly how to calculate cubic feet for shipping, and you’ll even be introduced to a few tools that can speed up the process.
CUFT, or “cubic feet,” refers to the amount of space your item or shipment takes up on a truck. It includes length, width, and height - which are the three key measurements volume incorporates.
It’s important to know how to figure cube for shipping or measure the CUFT of your shipment because the volume of your item will impact how much it costs to ship. Whether you use LTL, FTL, or another arrangement, it’s important that you know how to use or develop a freight cubic calculator to produce accurate estimates about what shipping costs you’ll have to pay.
So how do you calculate cubic volume? Should I use a pallet cube calculator, or can I run the numbers on my own? We hear these questions all the time from people who are still trying to figure out how to calculate a cube for shipping, and we’re going to answer all these questions below.
If you can quickly calculate cubic inches for shipping, you’ll speed up the process of getting items ready for delivery and you’ll be able to effectively plan costs for shipping.
To calculate cubic feet for shipping, you’ll use the same basic formula for volume that you learned in school. Even a high-tech shipping volume calculator will work from the same basic framework that volume equals length times width times height. Don’t forget that you must include the dimensions of the packaging and not just the item.
What makes it challenging to run cubic feet calculator shipping estimates on your own is that each carrier has its own regulations and requirements. You can complete the basic measurements on your own, but you don’t know what additional rules each provider will enforce once they run their own freight cubic feet calculator numbers.
Normally, you’ll have to go through several steps to calculate cft (cubic feet) on your own. We wanted to make the process easier, so we created a cubic feet volume calculator to help you quickly calculate the total volume of your shipment.
Here’s how you can use this too:
For the most precise total volume estimate, please make sure you’re inserting accurate measurements into the shipping cube calculator. This will help you avoid going over certain limits.
For more information about tariffs, please see the FreightRun blog post on Cubic Capacity and Density Minimum Charges.