One Cargo, Two Different Freight Quotes: LDM vs Pallet Position Pricing Explained
Most shippers assume freight quotes are based on weight and destination alone. They’re not — how you load the same cargo can change the price.
Key takeaways
- Carriers price groupage freight two different ways — by loading meters (LDM) or by pallet position — and the same shipment can cost more or less depending on which model applies.
- How you load the trailer changes both numbers: the same 6 boxes measured 2.8 LDM / 8 pallet positions loaded manually.
- Optimizing for LDM (2.77 LDM / 7 positions) and optimizing for pallet positions (trading ~1m more LDM for 1 fewer position) produce different loads — and different costs depending on which pricing model your carrier uses.
- Pallet-optimized loading saved roughly 15% on a per-pallet-position quote, but would have cost about 50% more under a per-LDM quote for the same cargo.
- Rule of thumb: ask your carrier which model they price by before you load — then optimize the layout for that number, not just for "fitting everything in".
Why the Same Cargo Gets Different Freight Quotes
Most shippers assume a freight quote comes down to weight and destination. It doesn’t. Groupage and LTL road freight carriers typically price by the space a shipment occupies in the trailer — and there are two competing ways to measure that space: loading meters (LDM) and pallet positions. The same physical cargo can generate two very different quotes depending on which model the carrier uses, and depending on how the cargo was loaded in the first place.
LDM vs Pallet Positions Explained
A loading meter (LDM) is a measure of how much of the trailer’s length your cargo occupies, at full trailer width, expressed in linear meters — it’s a footprint measurement, not a volume or weight measurement. A pallet position is simpler: it’s a count of how many standard pallet slots your cargo occupies in the trailer, regardless of exactly how many linear meters that translates to.
Because these are two different units, a load that’s efficient by one measure isn’t automatically efficient by the other. Squeezing cargo into fewer pallet positions sometimes means spreading it over slightly more LDM, and vice versa.
Example Shipment Setup
To show this concretely, we packed the same 6 fragile boxes into a 13.6m box trailer three different ways — once loaded manually without optimization, once optimized purely for LDM, and once optimized purely for pallet positions — and compared the resulting numbers on each measure.
Manual Loading Approach
Loaded without any particular optimization strategy, the 6 boxes came out to 2.8 LDM and 8 pallet positions. That’s the baseline most shipments ship at when nobody has specifically planned the layout around the carrier’s pricing model.
LDM Optimization
Re-arranging the same boxes to minimize loading meters brought the shipment down to 2.77 LDM and 7 pallet positions — a small LDM improvement, but it also happened to reduce the pallet-position count by one in this case.
Pallet Position Optimization
Optimizing specifically for pallet positions instead produced a different trade-off: about 1 more meter of LDM in exchange for 1 fewer pallet position versus the LDM-optimized layout. On a per-pallet-position quote, that layout was roughly 15% cheaper. On a per-LDM quote, the same layout would have cost roughly 50% more — because it deliberately spends more linear meters to save a pallet slot.
How to Choose the Right Freight Pricing Model
There’s no single "best" layout — it depends entirely on how your carrier prices the load. Before you plan a shipment, ask whether the quote is based on loading meters or pallet positions, then optimize the layout for that specific number. Optimizing for the wrong measure can leave real money on the table even when the cargo "fits" either way.