Every LCL quote starts the same way. A customer sends carton dimensions and weights, and before you can price anything you need the CBM and the chargeable weight. Miss the volumetric side and you under-quote a light, bulky shipment and eat the difference.
The calculator below does it for any number of packages, in centimeters or inches, across sea, air and courier.
CargoEZ auto-calculates CBM and chargeable weight from your cargo details and turns them into a branded quote in seconds. Built for freight forwarders.
How to calculate CBM
CBM stands for cubic meter, the volume a shipment occupies. The formula is length times width times height, with every dimension in meters.
CBM = Length (m) × Width (m) × Height (m)
A carton measuring 120 cm by 100 cm by 100 cm is 1.2 m by 1.0 m by 1.0 m, so 1.2 CBM. Ship ten of them and you have 12 CBM. That is the number carriers and forwarders quote LCL rates against. If your dimensions are in centimeters, divide the three-way product by 1,000,000 to get cubic meters. In inches, the calculator converts for you at 2.54 cm per inch.
Why chargeable weight is the number that bills
Carriers do not bill on actual weight alone. They bill on the higher of actual weight and volumetric weight, because a container filling up with light cargo costs them the same space as a heavy one. That higher figure is the chargeable weight.
Volumetric weight is worked out differently by mode. Sea and LCL use the weight-or-measure rule where 1 CBM counts as 1,000 kg, so a 12 CBM shipment weighing 500 kg bills as 12 revenue tons, not half a ton. Air freight divides the volume in cubic centimeters by 6,000. Courier and express use 5,000, which is why the same box costs more by courier than by air. The calculator shows all three so you can see where a shipment flips from weight-based to volume-based pricing.
Container fill, before you promise a customer FCL
The fill bars show what share of each container your cargo takes by volume. A 20ft standard box holds about 33.2 m³, a 40ft standard about 67.7 m³, and a 40ft high cube about 76.3 m³. Real usable space runs a little lower once you account for pallets and stacking limits, so treat the percentages as a planning guide, not a loading plan.
This is the quick check that stops the awkward conversation later. If 18 CBM only fills half a 40ft, you quote LCL or shared FCL instead of selling a full container the customer does not need.
Worked example: a 12 CBM LCL shipment
Ten cartons, each 120 by 100 by 100 cm, 50 kg apiece.
| Figure | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Total CBM | 12.000 m³ | 1.2 CBM per carton × 10 |
| Actual weight | 500 kg | 50 kg × 10 |
| Volumetric (sea) | 12,000 kg | 12 CBM × 1,000 |
| Chargeable (sea) | 12,000 kg | higher of the two, so 12 revenue tons |
| 20ft fill | ~36% | 12 ÷ 33.2 |
By air the same cargo bills on 2,000 kg, by courier on 2,400 kg. The shipment is volume-heavy, which is the normal case for LCL and exactly why you never quote off actual weight.
More freight tools are on the way in the freight forwarding calculators section.