What it does
A packaging shipment turns on two numbers: how much of it goes in the box, and what sending that box costs. Both are usually estimated badly. Volume divided by volume says the container holds more than it does, because it ignores the 5 mm that stops your carton double-stacking; and the freight cost comes from a rate somebody was quoted last quarter.
The Shipping & Freight Cost Calculator loads your cargo into the container in three dimensions and tells you what really fits. Then it builds the cost from charges you enter yourself — freight, local charges, customs basis, exchange rate — and gives you a landed cost per unit you can defend, because you can see every figure that went into it.
Cartons, reels and pallets
- Cartons Length, width and height, gross weight and pieces per carton.
- Reels Measured as an annulus — outer diameter, face width and core diameter — with a wound density for the material. A reel of film planned as the box that would enclose it wastes a large part of a container; planned on its real wound volume, it does not.
- Palletised cartons The pallet standard and the maximum loaded height, so the plan reflects what the warehouse will actually build.
The container answer
Choose the container and the freight mode — Sea FCL, Sea LCL or Air — and whether you are costing per shipment or per full container. A stuffing factor lets you allow for cargo that never packs to its theoretical fit, and an order quantity turns a container fit into a shipment plan: how many containers, and how full the last one is.
The result tells you whether the load cubes out — runs out of space before it runs out of weight allowance — or weighs out, and what the other limit would have allowed. That is the number that tells you whether a different carton size would save you a container.
The loading answer appears before you have entered a single charge. If all you need is "how many fit", you never have to touch the cost side.
Service scope, and the Incoterm it implies
Pick the service scope you are buying — port-to-port, door-to-port, port-to-door or door-to-door — and the calculator shows the Incoterm that scope implies, beside it, so the assumption is never hidden. Pin a different Incoterm if your contract says otherwise, and come back to the assumed one whenever you like.
What it will not do is decide which charges belong to you. Scope sets the assumption and nothing else; the charge lines stay entirely under your control, because the division of costs in a real contract is a negotiated thing and an app that quietly dropped a line would be worse than one that asked.
Your rates, not ours
The module ships no freight rates at all. Every line starts at zero. You enter the ocean or air freight, the local charges at each end, the customs basis and the exchange rate for any currency other than the one you are costing in.
That is a deliberate choice rather than a gap. Freight rates move weekly and vary by lane, by carrier and by what you negotiated; a rate table published inside an app is stale within the month and carries an authority it has not earned. A number you typed is one you can stand behind in front of a customer.
Who uses it
- Exporters quoting a landed price The cost per unit delivered, built from the freight you were actually quoted.
- Packaging manufacturers Whether a carton redesign pays for itself in freight — the container fit answers that before the artwork does.
- Buyers and procurement A check on what a supplier's shipping line should cost, on your own figures.
- Anyone sizing a first shipment How many containers, and how full the last one will be.
What it costs
Nothing. It is free to every signed-in GPN member — no account activation, no yearly seat, no administrator approval. Sign in with Google and open Shipping & Freight from your dashboard.
Calculator outputs are working estimates, not binding quotations. Confirm freight, duties and local charges with your forwarder before committing to a price.
The use cases on the home page cover all eight roles and which modules answer each.