Freight Cost Calculator (Sea, Air & Road)

The single most common mistake in freight budgeting is multiplying the weight on the scales by a rate per kilogram. Carriers do not price that way. They price on chargeable weight — the greater of your actual weight and a volume-derived figure — because space is the constrained resource in an aircraft hold or a container, not mass.

Freight Cost Calculator works the way a forwarder actually quotes. Enter your cartons by dimension, weight and quantity, and it derives total volume, volumetric weight on the correct divisor for your mode, revenue tons for sea, and the chargeable figure your rate applies to. It then builds the full landed cost: freight, fuel surcharge, origin and destination handling, documentation, terminal and CFS charges, customs clearance, duty and VAT on the correct dutiable base, delivery and insurance.

Because the same cargo behaves very differently across modes, all three are calculated at once. A light bulky consignment that looks cheap by sea can be dominated by fixed charges, and a small dense shipment is sometimes genuinely cheaper by air. The comparison view shows cost per kilogram, cost per cubic metre, and which constraint — weight or volume — is driving your bill in each mode.

• Multi-line cargo entry: Add as many carton types as you need, each with dimensions, unit weight and quantity, with running totals for pieces, volume and gross weight.
• Correct divisor per mode: Air at 6000, express courier at 5000, road groupage at 1 CBM to 333 kg, and sea LCL on the weight-or-measurement revenue ton — each applied automatically.
• Chargeable weight shown explicitly: Actual, volumetric and chargeable side by side, with a clear indicator of whether your cargo is weight-driven or volume-driven.
• Density readout: Kilograms per cubic metre, the single number that predicts how a carrier will treat your freight.
• Full landed cost build-up: Freight, fuel and security surcharges, origin and destination charges, documentation, THC and CFS, clearance, duty, VAT and delivery — itemised rather than buried.
• Correct dutiable base: Duty applied on CIF or FOB at your choice, and VAT applied on the duty-inclusive value, which is where most spreadsheets go wrong.
• Three-mode comparison: Sea, air and road costed on the same cargo, with cost per kg and per CBM for each.
• Carrier rounding options: Round dimensions up to the whole centimetre and chargeable weight to the next 0.5 or 1 kg, as most carriers do.
• Minimum charge handling: Apply per-shipment minimums and minimum revenue tons so small consignments are costed honestly.
• Currency-agnostic: Enter rates in any currency; the tool never assumes one.
• Entirely client-side: No account, no upload, no stored rates.

1. Enter your cargo. Add a line per carton type with length, width, height, unit gross weight and quantity. Use the dimensions of the packed carton, not the product.
2. Check the density figure. Below roughly 167 kg per cubic metre your air freight will be volume-driven; below 1000 kg per cubic metre your sea LCL bills on volume. This single number tells you where the cost pressure sits.
3. Set your rates. Enter the ocean rate per revenue ton, the air rate per kilogram and the road rate per chargeable kilogram from your forwarder quote or tariff.
4. Add the surcharges. Fuel percentage, origin and destination charges, documentation, THC, CFS and clearance. These are where small-shipment economics are decided.
5. Enter goods value and duty. Choose CIF or FOB as the dutiable base and set duty and VAT percentages for the destination.
6. Read the comparison. Look at total landed cost, not the freight line, and check cost per kilogram across all three modes before you decide.
7. Model the alternatives. Change carton dimensions or consolidate quantities and watch chargeable weight move — this is usually the cheapest lever available to you.

Example 1 — Light bulky cargo by air. Twenty cartons at 60 x 40 x 50 cm, 8 kg each. Volume is 2.4 CBM and gross weight 160 kg, but volumetric weight on the 6000 divisor is 400 kg. You pay on 400 kg, two and a half times your actual weight, because the density is only 67 kg per cubic metre. Reducing carton height to 40 cm cuts volumetric weight to 320 kg and the freight bill with it — the packaging change is worth more than a rate negotiation.

Example 2 — Dense cargo by sea LCL. Eight pallets totalling 6 CBM and 9.5 tonnes. Because weight exceeds volume, you bill at 9.5 revenue tons rather than 6, and the shipment is weight-driven. Here the lever is not packaging but consolidation or a move to FCL, since at this density a container fills on weight well before it fills on space.

Example 3 — Small shipment where air wins. Two cartons, 0.15 CBM, 45 kg dense. The ocean rate is trivial but CFS, terminal handling, documentation and clearance apply regardless, so the sea total lands above the air total on 45 chargeable kilograms — before counting five weeks of transit. Fixed charges, not rates, decide small consignments.

Example 4 — Duty base error. The same 30,000 unit value shipment costed with duty on FOB versus CIF differs by the duty percentage applied to freight and insurance. On a high-freight, high-duty lane that gap is material, and applying VAT to a duty-exclusive value compounds it. The calculator handles the sequence correctly so the landed figure survives scrutiny.

• Quote and budget on the right number: Chargeable weight, not scale weight, is what you will be invoiced on.
• See where the cost actually sits: Itemised surcharges reveal that on small shipments the freight rate is often the smallest line on the bill.
• Choose the mode on total cost: Comparing landed totals across sea, air and road prevents the false economy of a cheap ocean rate buried under fixed charges.
• Find the packaging saving: Density is the lever most shippers never pull, and a centimetre off a carton can outperform a rate review.
• Check a forwarder quote line by line: When you know which charges should appear and roughly how large they should be, an inflated quote becomes obvious.
• Get the duty sequence right: Duty on the correct base and VAT on the duty-inclusive value, which is where landed-cost spreadsheets most often break.
• Free, private and instant: No sign-up, no rate database, nothing uploaded.