Ask us something
Technical questions go straight to the graders.
Recycled pallet prices can rise in a recession, and usually do.
This is the mechanism buyers find hardest to believe. Recycled supply is not manufactured to order; it is harvested from platforms being retired, and retirement happens when goods move. In a slowdown fewer goods move, fewer platforms get handled and damaged, fewer get retired, and the pool of available cores shrinks — while demand for cheap platforms rises as buyers switch from new. Supply down, demand up, prices firm.
Lumber indices get all the attention and deserve less of it. Published softwood prices track structural framing lumber; pallet stock is low-grade material from the parts of the log framing buyers reject, often a by-product rather than a product. The transmission from a lumber move to your recycled invoice runs through new pallet prices with roughly a quarter's lag at each step, damped every time.
What actually moves our price, in order: core availability, freight and diesel, the lumber index at a distance, footprint scarcity, seasonality, and grade mix in the inbound pool. The most useful signal available to a buyer is the A-to-B grade spread, which you can track for free by asking two suppliers for both grades every month.
- Core availability dominates, and it moves counter-cyclically.
- Freight moves recycled prices faster than lumber does, because pallets are bulky and cheap per pound.
- Scarcity beats size: an unusual 42 × 42 can cost more than a common 48 × 48.
- September and October are the tightest eight weeks every single year.
- Track the A-to-B spread. It is a better market signal than any published index.
- Panic-buying on a lumber news story, roughly six months before it reaches your invoice
- Expecting recycled prices to fall in a weak economy
- Spot-buying volume in the first week of October and concluding prices have risen permanently
- Switching suppliers on an autumn price and switching back in spring, having gained paperwork
- Assuming an unusual footprint is cheaper because it is smaller
3 on market, newest first.
Reading the softwood lumber index without panicking
Lumber futures move violently and recycled pallet prices move slowly. Confusing the two leads to badly timed buying.4 min · 889 words · Rosa, logistics
September 9, 2025Why pallet prices spike in the autumn
Three industries pull on the same pool in the same eight weeks. If your buying is flexible, this is the single easiest saving available.4 min · 822 words · Rosa, logistics
August 20, 2024What actually moves the price of a used pallet
Six forces, only one of which is lumber. Understanding them is the difference between negotiating and guessing.4 min · 854 words · Rosa, logistics
The tables behind these posts.
The same data we work from in the yard, so you can check the arguments above against the numbers.
| Criterion | Grade A / #1 | Grade B / #2 | Combo | Core / as-is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plugs permitted | No | Yes | In the B portion | N/A — unsorted |
| Companion boards | No | Yes | In the B portion | N/A |
| Stringer repair | No | Yes, plug or plate | In the B portion | N/A |
| Missing boards | None | None | None | Possible |
| Weathering | Light | Visible | Mixed | As received |
| Dimensional tolerance | ±⅜ in | ±½ in | ±½ in | Unchecked |
| Protruding fasteners | None | None | None | Possible |
| Rated load | Full | Full | Full | Unknown |
| Indicative price index | 100 | 62–70 | 75–85 | 30–45 |
| Re-stamped with passport | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Price index is relative, with A-grade set at 100, and moves with the market. Note that rated load is full on A, B and Combo alike — grade is a cosmetic and repair-history statement, not a strength one. Grades explained in full.
| Driver | Weight | Direction | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core availability | Highest | Counter-cyclical | Supply comes from platforms being retired, which tracks goods movement. Recycled prices can firm in a slowdown. |
| Freight & diesel | High | Direct | Pallets are bulky and cheap per pound, so trucking rates move our price faster than lumber does. |
| New lumber index | Moderate | Direct, lagged ~2 quarters | Transmits through new pallet prices, damped at every step. |
| Footprint scarcity | Moderate | Inverse to popularity | An unusual 42×42 can cost more than a common 48×48. Popularity is cheapness. |
| Seasonality | Moderate | Peaks Sep–Oct | Harvest, retail build and construction overlap in eight weeks. |
| Grade mix in the pool | Low–moderate | Widens the A/B spread | A hard winter or a beaten-up inbound stream lowers A-grade yield. |
| Treatment & certification | Low | Direct | A fixed adder per unit, not a market force. |
Note the first row: recycled supply is harvested from platforms being retired, so it can tighten in a slowdown. Buyers tracking only the lumber index are reliably surprised. Full breakdown.
Relative demand pressure on the Mid-Atlantic recycled pool across a year, indexed to the October peak. Harvest, retail peak build and the construction push before winter overlap in roughly eight weeks. Hover or tap a month for what is happening in it.
The terms these posts assume you know.
Vocabulary is the cheapest performance upgrade in this industry — almost every argument we have with a new customer comes down to two people using the same word for different objects.
- Board foot
- A unit of lumber volume: 12 × 12 × 1 inches. A 48×40 GMA pallet contains roughly 35–40 board feet.
- Core
- An unsorted, un-repaired used pallet — raw material for a recycler. Sold by the load.
- GMA
- Grocery Manufacturers Association, whose 48×40 spec became the de facto North American pallet.
- Whitewood
- Any non-pooled, non-rental pallet — owned outright rather than leased from a programme.
Where market meets what we actually sell.
Market questions we get.
Will pallet prices go up or down next quarter?
Nobody in this trade can forecast core availability six months out, and a supplier offering you a confident twelve-month outlook is selling certainty they do not possess. We will tell you where we think the next quarter sits and say plainly how confident we are, which is usually somewhere between fairly and not very.
When is the cheapest time to buy?
January and February, reliably. Agriculture is dormant, construction is weather-limited, the retail peak is over and the pool has been replenished by autumn activity. The catch is that you then store wood through the hardest season for it, so the usual answer is to buy forward and let us hold the buffer in covered storage.
Why is an unusual footprint more expensive than a bigger standard one?
Because in recycled stock scarcity sets the price, not material volume. The recovered pool for a 48 × 40 is enormous; for a 42 × 42 it barely exists. Popularity is cheapness, which reads backwards to anyone used to new-product price lists.
Eleven more areas.
NoteSubject pages are reachable from the blog index and from every post rather than the main menu. The full archive lists all forty posts by year.