Guide: Nestable vs stackable vs rackable

Three styles, three strengths

How to choose

1. Does the pallet ever go on a rack? If yes, it needs a racking load on the sheet.
2. Does it return empty? If yes, the nestable saves trailers.
3. Does it sit in tall stacks for weeks? If yes, read the static rating and the creep guide.
4. Does it do more than one? Take the lowest rating of the jobs, and consider a multi-use model.

Some pallets cross the lines. Nelson Company lists a 48 x 40 x 4.8 in model that is nestable, stackable and rackable, with 10,500 lb static, 3,100 lb dynamic and 2,700 lb racking. The price of being all three is a lower number in each than a specialist carries.

The return leg decides more than you expect

A loop that returns 6,000 empty pallets a month needs 5 trailers of Rehrig Pacific heavy-duty nestables and 12 of rackables. Over a year that is 84 trailers of difference, before the cost of storing them. Run your own figure in the calculator.

A stack worked out

Take a stackable rated 12,000 lb static. The bottom pallet carries the pallets above it, so with each loaded pallet weighing 2,848 lb it can hold 4 above, a stack of 5. With 6,890 lb per pallet it can hold 1 above. This is a ceiling on a flat floor for a still stack, not a promise for a stack that moves or waits.

How tall the empties stand

Stack height is the other half of the return leg. For the Rehrig Pacific heavy-duty nestable, a stack of 12 stands 34.55 in and a stack of 24 stands 65.15 in, against 156.0 in un-nested.

Questions to put to the maker

• Is the pallets-per-trailer number for nested empties, or for loaded pallets?
• Do the legs ever jam when pallets are nested warm and then cold?
• Does a nested stack need a strap or wrap to ship, and who supplies it?

From the dock

• A pallet that nests well but cracks at the corner after a season is not a bargain; ask for the service record.
• Warehouses with low ceilings find nested stacks fit under sprinkler lines that tall un-nested stacks would hit.

Words on this page

Dynamic load

The weight a pallet holds while it is moved by a forklift, pallet jack or conveyor. It is lower than static because motion adds shock.

UL

Underwriters Laboratories, a safety testing body that publishes fire test standards, including one for storage pallets.

Recycled content

The share of a pallet moulded from reground plastic. Makers print it as a range, often by colour.

GMA pallet

The 48 by 40 inch North American standard, named for the Grocery Manufacturers Association that popularised it.

Nest increment

The extra height each additional empty pallet adds to a nested stack, measured in inches. A small increment means a short stack.

Creep

Slow, permanent bending of plastic under a steady load. A pallet can hold a load for an hour and bow under it after a month.

Dunnage

Loose material used to support or secure cargo inside a trailer or container.

Pallet pooling

A rental model where a company owns the pallets and moves them between customers, instead of each customer buying its own.