Pick a container, enter your export carton's dimensions and how many pieces pack into each one, and see the maximum cartons, units and CBM it holds. The volume maths is exact — but real stowage depends on how cleanly your cartons stack and on the weight limit, so treat the result as an indicative upper bound and confirm with your freight forwarder before booking.
⚠️ Indicative upper bound — not a stow plan. The volume maths is exact, but a real load depends on how cleanly your cartons stack, mixed carton sizes, pallet vs floor-loading, and the container's weight limit. The usable-CBM figures (~28 / ~58 / ~68) already discount to about 85–90% fill; the weight check uses a typical ~26–28 t payload that varies by shipping line and tare weight. Confirm your actual carton spec at sampling and your chargeable volume and payload with your freight forwarder before booking.
When you plan a knitwear shipment, the first question is simple: does the order fit one container, and how much can I actually load? This tool answers it from the volume side. Pick a container, tell it your export carton's dimensions and how many pieces go in each carton, and it returns the maximum number of cartons the container holds, how many units that is, and how much of the container's volume you'd use.
It is a capacity planner, not a stow plan. Every carton — including the last one, even if it's part-full — counts as a full carton's footprint, because that's how space is actually consumed on the vessel. Everything updates as you type.
Nothing here is hidden or invented. The exact maths is:
Carton CBM = (L × W × H in cm) ÷ 1,000,000
Max cartons = usable container CBM ÷ carton CBM, rounded down
Max units = max cartons × units per carton
Volume used = max cartons × carton CBM
Worked example (the default values): a 20ft container has about 28 CBM of usable volume, and a 60 × 40 × 40 cm carton is 0.096 CBM. So 28 ÷ 0.096 = 291.6, rounded down to 291 cartons. At 50 pieces per carton that's 14,550 units, using 27.94 CBM — about 99.8% of the usable volume. Change any input and the numbers follow.
A container has two ceilings: how much space there is (CBM) and how much weight it can legally carry (payload, typically ~26–28 tonnes). Whichever you hit first stops you loading more. Knitwear is light and bulky, so in practice it almost always fills up on volume long before weight becomes an issue — which is why the headline figure here is volume-based. Enter a gross weight per carton and the tool cross-checks it against a typical payload and flags the rare case where weight would bind first. For dense goods that flip is common; for sweaters and knits, volume is the number to watch.
Max cartons = usable container volume ÷ the CBM of one carton, rounded down — a part-full carton still needs a full carton's footprint, so you can't count it. Carton CBM is length × width × height in centimetres ÷ 1,000,000. As a loading guide, usable volume is roughly 28 CBM in a 20ft, 58 CBM in a 40ft and 68 CBM in a 40ft high-cube — already discounted to about 85–90% of the raw internal volume for real-world stacking.
A container's raw internal volume (about 33 CBM for a 20ft) is never fully usable. Cartons leave gaps where they don't tessellate, odd sizes waste corners, and you need clearance at the doors and roof line. Planners work to roughly 85–90% fill, which is why this tool uses ~28, ~58 and ~68 CBM for a 20ft, 40ft and 40HC — realistic loadable figures, not the theoretical maximum.
Almost always volume. Knitwear is light and bulky, so a container fills up on CBM long before it reaches its ~26–28 tonne payload — the exact figure varies by shipping line and tare weight. Enter a gross weight per carton and this tool flags the rare case where weight would bind first. For dense goods the opposite is true, but for sweaters and knits, volume is the number that matters.
Use your factory's real figures, confirmed at sampling — not a guess. Kiwi Giyim is a Gaziantep, Türkiye knitwear OEM and private-label manufacturer (MOQ 250 pieces per colour, per size), and we lock the export carton dimensions, gross weight and pack ratio (for example 50 pieces per carton, one colour or assorted sizes) during sampling. Until you have those, enter a realistic estimate — this tool only does maths on the values you give it.
Related free tools: Carton & CBM Shipment Calculator, MOQ & Order Value Calculator and Knitwear Cost Calculator — or browse all free knitwear tools and head back to the US knitwear hub.