What is a Chargeable Weight?

• It determines how much you need to pay for your shipments.

• Dimensional weight or CBM (cubic meters) are one of the standards that carriers commonly used to calculate the volumetric weight of the shipments and the shipping costs.

• Different packaging materials and palletization affect the chargeable weight. Poorly packed items can have more space and less weight.

• The bigger your shipment, the higher the CBM. If the actual weight is higher than the dimensional weight, then carriers will use the actual weight to calculate shipping cost.

• CBM is widely used in shipping and logistic companies to calculate transported goods’ volume and determine space requirements and shipping costs.

• Logistics companies use different standards to calculate the chargeable weight of a package. Typically, they calculate the dimensional weight (DIM weight) by multiplying the length, width, and height of the package, then dividing by the dimensional weight divisor.
  

• For example, if you have a box measuring 36 cm x 25 cm x 16 cm and your carrier uses a dimensional weight divisor of 5000, the DIM weight would be 3 kg.
  

Pro tips: you can easily calculate the total shipping cost by using our online rate tool. 

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