Most shipments should go in a box, and a crating company telling you otherwise is selling rather than advising. Corrugated is cheaper, lighter, faster to pack and entirely adequate for the majority of freight. A crate earns its cost in four situations: when the load is too heavy for corrugated, when the item is fragile enough that a rigid frame is the only real protection, when the container will be reused, and when it crosses a border. Here is how to tell which situation you are in, and what determines the answer.
We build both. We fabricate custom wood crates in our Las Vegas shop and we stock corrugated shipping boxes, so we have no reason to push you toward the expensive answer when the cheap one works.
The Comparison at a Glance
| Factor | Corrugated Box | Custom Wood Crate |
|---|---|---|
| Load capacity | Set by board grade; parcel carriers commonly cap around 70 lb | From roughly 1,000 lb for light duty designs up to 30,000 lb for heavy sheathed construction |
| Protection type | Cushioning and containment | Structural frame carrying load away from the item |
| Stacking | Limited, and degrades once compressed or damp | Designed in, with load bearing tops where specified |
| Moisture | Loses strength when damp | Tolerates it; barrier protection can be built in |
| Reuse | One to a few trips | Many, if screwed rather than nailed |
| Export | Not regulated under ISPM 15 | Must be heat treated and stamped under ISPM 15 |
| Cost | Lowest | Higher upfront, divided across trips if reused |
| Lead time | Off the shelf | Built to the item |
Cardboard Is More Engineered Than People Think
The reason “cardboard holds about 100 pounds” is a meaningless statement is that corrugated is a specified material with published ratings, and the range between grades is enormous. Two numbers govern it:
- Edge Crush Test (ECT), measured in pounds per inch, indicates stacking strength. This is the figure that matters for palletised and warehoused goods, and it is the more commonly used specification today.
- Mullen burst strength, measured in pounds per square inch, indicates resistance to puncture and rough handling. The older standard, still used for heavier and irregular loads.
Where to find them: the Box Maker’s Certificate, the round stamp printed on the bottom flap of most corrugated boxes. It states the test rating, the board construction and a maximum gross weight. If you are guessing whether a box is strong enough, turn it over and read it rather than estimating. The Fibre Box Association sets the industry specifications behind that stamp, and testing bodies like the International Safe Transit Association are who those ratings are validated against for real world handling.
And the construction: single wall is one fluted layer between two liners, double wall is two, triple wall is three. Double wall handles substantially more than single, and triple wall is genuinely heavy duty packaging that competes with light crating for some loads. Someone telling you cardboard cannot do the job may simply be picturing a single wall carton.
When You Actually Need a Crate
Any one of these, and corrugated is a false economy:
- The load exceeds what corrugated is rated for, or exceeds parcel carrier weight limits, commonly around 70 pounds. Above that you are in freight anyway, and our shipping page covers which system you are in.
- The item cannot bear its own packaging. Anything where load must travel through a frame rather than through the object: machinery with delicate housings, art, instruments, anything with a finished surface that cannot take pressure.
- It will be handled by forklift. Boxes are not built for fork entry. Crates are, and freight is moved by forklift whether you planned for it or not.
- It will be stacked in a trailer or container. Corrugated loses stacking strength as it absorbs moisture. A crate with a load bearing top does not.
- It will make the trip more than once. This is the one people miss. A screwed crate opens and closes repeatedly; corrugated is finished after a trip or two. See our reusable crates.
- It is irreplaceable. Carrier liability is limited by weight and class, not by what the item is worth to you.
- It is going into long term storage. Months in a warehouse is a different problem from days in transit.
When a Box Is the Right Answer, and We Will Tell You So
- It is within weight and size limits for parcel service and reasonably robust.
- It is replaceable, and a claim would genuinely cover it.
- It is a one way domestic trip with few handling transfers.
- The packaging cost would be a large share of the item’s value. Spending $200 to protect a $300 item rarely makes sense.
- You need it gone today. A crate has to be built. A box does not.
In those cases the right move is a correctly specified box with proper cushioning, and we would rather sell you that and keep you as a customer than talk you into a crate you did not need. We stock boxes and packing supplies for exactly this.
The Answer Is Often Both
The most common professional build is not one or the other. It is the item boxed or bagged for cleanliness and cushioning, blocked and braced inside a crate that carries the structural load, with moisture protection where the route requires it.
Each layer solves a different problem. The inner packaging manages surface contact and small movement. The crate manages impact, stacking and forklifts. A vapor barrier bag with desiccant manages condensation on long transits. Treating them as competing options is the mistake; they are stages.
Export: The One Place the Rules Are Not Optional
If your shipment leaves the country, solid wood packaging must be heat treated and marked under ISPM 15, administered in the United States through USDA APHIS. This applies to crates, pallets, skids, dunnage and bracing.
Corrugated is not covered by ISPM 15 at all. It falls outside the standard’s scope because manufacturing already removes the pest risk. There is no treatment, certification or fumigation step for cardboard, and any advice suggesting otherwise is wrong. The same exemption applies to plywood and other engineered panels, which is why many export crates combine a heat treated solid wood frame with plywood sheathing.
We apply the ISPM 15 stamp in house, so international shipments do not need a separate vendor or an extra week in the schedule.
What Each Actually Costs
We are not going to publish price ranges we cannot stand behind, and any figure you find online for “a crate” is guessing at an object it has never seen. What we can tell you is what the numbers depend on.
- A box is priced on size and board grade. Predictable, low, and available immediately.
- A crate is priced on dimensions, weight, internal bracing, cushioning, hardware, heat treatment where required, and design time. The item drives it, not a size chart.
- Divide the crate cost by trips. A crate used four times costs a quarter of its price per trip, which is where most of the apparent gap disappears.
- Add the freight difference. Carriers bill on dimensional weight, so an oversized container costs money on every leg. Our freight shipping page covers how carriers classify a load and what that does to the price.
The fuller cost reasoning, including how to weigh damage risk against packaging spend, is in how custom crates save money.
A Word on Sustainability
Both materials have a reasonable environmental case and both are frequently overstated. Corrugated is widely recycled and biodegradable, but it is usually a short life product. Wood crates consume more material upfront and repay it through reuse, provided they are actually reused rather than built as single trip containers.
The honest summary: for a one way shipment of durable goods, corrugated is the lower impact choice. For anything making repeated trips, a well built crate that lasts years is. If sustainability is a genuine procurement criterion for you, the lever that matters is reuse count, not material. We are not going to quote you recovery percentages we have not verified.
Not Sure Which One You Need?
Send us a photograph, dimensions, weight, where it is going, and how many times it will make the trip. We will tell you whether it needs a crate or a box, and quote whichever is right. If a box will do the job, we will say so and sell you the box. Call 702-748-4973 or 1-833-801-9084 toll free, email contact@lasvegascrating.com, or request a quote online. See custom wood crates, corrugated shipping boxes and crate fabrication.