How many pallets does your
building actually hold?
Most buildings are storing a fraction of what their footprint allows, because the storage strategy was chosen once and never revisited. Put your dimensions in and compare six strategies in the same four walls.
What conventional racking gets you in this footprint.
5 levels used of 32 ft clear height.
No land, no shell, no general contractor.
Every pallet reachable. The baseline almost every building starts from.
One extra pallet deep for roughly the same aisle. Needs a reach truck.
LIFO. Density per SKU rather than per pallet — best with few SKUs, deep stock.
Highest density without automation, lowest selectivity, slowest cycles.
Lane depth stops being limited by forklift reach. LIFO and FIFO in one system.
Full density and full selectivity. Uses the clear height a lift truck cannot.
Planning-grade estimates for a 48" × 40" pallet, allowing for docks, staging, cross aisles and columns. Not a rack design — seismic zone, fire strategy, floor flatness and your SKU profile all move these numbers.
Get this verifiedWhere the numbers come from
No black box. Each strategy is modelled on how deep a rack run can be, how much aisle it needs, how much vertical pitch each pallet consumes and how many levels are practical.
| System | Pallets deep | Aisle | Max levels | Selectivity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single-deep selective Every pallet reachable. The baseline almost every building starts from. | 2 | 12 ft | 5 | 100% |
| Two-deep One extra pallet deep for roughly the same aisle. Needs a reach truck. | 4 | 13 ft | 5 | 50% |
| Push-back LIFO. Density per SKU rather than per pallet — best with few SKUs, deep stock. | 8 | 12 ft | 4 | 25% |
| Drive-in Highest density without automation, lowest selectivity, slowest cycles. | 12 | 12 ft | 4 | 12% |
| Deep lane pallet shuttle Lane depth stops being limited by forklift reach. LIFO and FIFO in one system. | 20 | 12 ft | 6 | 30% |
| 4D Shuttle AS/RS Full density and full selectivity. Uses the clear height a lift truck cannot. | 32 | 6 ft | 14 | 100% |
Density on its own is not the answer. Drive-in racking will always beat selective on pallet count and lose badly on selectivity — which is exactly why the comparison matters more than the maximum. The right strategy is the one that fits your SKU count, your order profile and how fast stock turns.
Turn the estimate into a layout
Send us the dimensions you just used and we will come back with a drawn layout, real pallet counts against your SKU profile, and the honest tradeoff between the options.