Lightbox Freight: How Many Square Metres Fit in a 40HQ
Lightboxes travel as flat packs, and flat packs hit the container’s volume limit long before its 26-tonne weight limit. That is the whole of the freight story: your cost per square metre is set by how thick the pack is, not by how heavy the box is.
Usable volume, not the nominal figure
A 40HQ measures 12.03 × 2.35 × 2.39 m inside — about 67.5 m³. Nobody fills all of it: pallets eat height, cartons never nest perfectly, and you need a gap for loading. Eight-five per cent is a working figure; some shippers plan on 80, some on 90, and the difference is a whole pallet of product.
m² per container
flat-packed, 1 m² panels with frame
Square metres of face per 40HQ, by pack depth
These are square metres of face, not panels. A 2 m × 3 m face counts as 6 m² however it is packed — but its crate is longer and wider, so the packing efficiency drops a little on very large single panels.
Freight per square metre
| Pack depth | Face per 40HQ | Freight per m² at $3,000 | Face per 20GP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60 mm | 956 m² | $3 | 475 m² |
| 80 mm | 717 m² | $4 | 356 m² |
| 100 mm | 574 m² | $5 | 285 m² |
| 120 mm | 478 m² | $6 | 238 m² |
| 150 mm | 382 m² | $8 | 190 m² |
Freight is the ocean leg only. Doors, duties and the last mile sit on top, but they scale with the same square metres, so the depth still drives the comparison.
What sets the pack depth
Profile depth. A 120 mm profile cannot pack into 60 mm; the frame sets the floor. Choosing a shallower profile for export is a freight decision as much as a design one.
Knock-down versus assembled. Sending frames cut and cornered, with the faces flat separately, can halve the pack depth at the cost of assembly time on site.
Nesting. Panels of the same size nest; a mixed pallet of three sizes does not. Standardising sizes is the cheapest freight saving there is.
Protection. Corner pads and foam add 5–10 mm per side. Budget for it rather than discovering it at the loading dock.
The weight check
Run the other limit once to be sure it is not binding. A finished lightbox face runs roughly 8–12 kg/m² including frame and strip; at 12 kg/m² a 26-tonne payload would carry over 2,000 m². Volume binds first by a factor of two or more, which is why nobody quotes lightboxes by weight.
Five questions for your forwarder
Ask for the CBM rate and the weight rate separately, so you can see which one is charging you. Ask what pallet height they plan. Ask whether the cartons are stackable two-high. Ask where LCL stops being cheaper than a 20GP. And ask what the insurance premium is based on — value or volume.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a 20GP halve the load?
Nearly: about 28 m³ usable against 57, so roughly half the square metres. It is worth comparing a 20GP plus a part-load against a single 40HQ once you are near the halfway mark.
Are faces shipped printed or blank?
Either. Printed faces add almost no volume — the ink is microns thick — but they do need interleaving paper, which adds a millimetre or two per panel.
Can frames and faces ship in the same crate?
Yes, and it usually saves volume against two separate crates, as long as the faces are on the inside and the frames cannot fret against them in transit.
Tell us the face sizes and the profile depth and we will come back with a packing plan and a per-square-metre freight estimate. See our display aluminium profiles.
Products referenced
SEG profiles and accessories, packed for export · printable sheet packed with your frame order