Costs · Freight rates
What a pallet actually
costs to move in Queensland
Linehaul rates, fuel levies, tail-lift fees and the surcharges that hide in the gap between a quote and an invoice — here's how a pallet price is really built.
Ask three carriers what a pallet costs to move from Brisbane to Sydney and you'll get three numbers — $140, $165, $210 — and all three can be honest. The difference is almost never the drive itself. It's everything bolted onto the drive.
A pallet price has three real parts. The lane charge — the actual truck time, fuel and a share of the trailer. The handling — pickup, depot touch, delivery. And the accessorials — tail-lift, residential address, waiting time, re-delivery. The first part is roughly fixed across the industry; the last part is where the spread lives.
Our own number for a standard pallet BNE to SYD sits at $165 and it's on the public price page. What makes it $165 and not $130: the fuel levy is inside the number, the metro delivery at the other end is inside the number, and the quote is fixed for a fortnight.
The paperwork pile
Reading the detail
Written by Darren Betz, owner — he still prices the odd lane himself, which is why the numbers above are real.
The cheapest freight quote is usually the one that's missing a line item. When a number looks too good, ask what it doesn't include.
Where quotes hide the extras
Read a rate card for the exclusions, not the headline. The usual suspects: fuel levies quoted as a floating percentage, "manual handling" fees for anything heavier than 25 kg, residential surcharges, and the dreaded redelivery fee for a failed first attempt.
The genuinely useful question to ask any carrier: what would make this invoice bigger than the quote? A good operator answers in one breath. A bad one says "probably nothing".
When cheap is actually cheap
Backloading and consolidators can legitimately beat lane rates when your timing is flexible — the truck's coming back anyway. We say this as a carrier that isn't the cheapest on every lane: match the service level to the freight, not the other way around.
The short version
- Lane charge + handling + accessorials = the real price
- Ask what could make the invoice exceed the quote
- Floating fuel levies are the most common gap
- Flexible timing can honestly open up backload rates
The 6am linehaul queue — most of those pallets left with a plan, some left with a hope.
What a Brisbane pallet actually costs
Pulled from real quotes we wrote last quarter — your lane will land somewhere in these bands.
More from the dispatch desk
Want a real number, not a range?
Send the lane and the pallet count — we'll come back with a fixed written quote.