Courier: cartons, not pallets
A courier network is built for boxes a driver can carry. Freight is priced per carton with weight bands, it moves through sorting hubs, and the service is the same whether you send one box or thirty. That is exactly right for samples, spares and small orders, and exactly wrong for anything on a pallet: cartons that need a forklift at either end are outside the model, oversize surcharges arrive fast, and thirty boxes become thirty labels and thirty chances to lose one. We do not run a courier service and will not guess at their prices — check the carrier's carton rates for your weight band.
Shared-deck pallet freight: one to eight pallets
A shared deck is a scheduled truck already running your corridor, with your pallets taking the space they occupy and nothing else. It is priced per pallet space — footprint, height and weight — and the per-pallet rate steps down as the consignment grows: on Melbourne → Sydney today, $245 for one pallet, $199 each for four, $184 each on eight. GST and fuel are inside those numbers. Transit follows the corridor's schedule rather than a departure you choose, which is the trade for not paying for the truck.
The mechanics — what breaks a space, why the two directions of a corridor price differently — are in how pallet freight pricing works, and every corridor's rate is on the line haul page. If the shipment is on one of the big three corridors, the corridor page has both directions priced: Sydney ↔ Melbourne, Sydney ↔ Brisbane or Melbourne ↔ Brisbane.
A dedicated truck: when you need the whole deck
Above 8 pallet spaces, or when the shipment needs the deck to itself — a fixed departure time, a sealed load, freight that cannot share — you are chartering a vehicle. You pay for the truck's whole trip, including the return leg, so it only makes sense when you fill it or when timing is worth more than the difference. We quote these by hand within a business day rather than from the card, because the price depends on the vehicle and the day, not the pallet count.
The decision rule
- Boxes a person can carry, under the carrier's carton weight limit: courier.
- One to 8 pallets, forklift or tail-lift at the ends, scheduled transit is fine: shared-deck pallet freight, priced online.
- More than 8 spaces, or a departure time and a deck to yourself: a dedicated truck, quoted by hand.
- Whichever you book, ask whether fuel is inside the price and which direction the quote is for — the two things that make freight quotes hard to compare.
Every lane, both directions, GST and fuel inside the number. No account, no quote form.
Open the pallet rate card →