In 30 seconds, turn a building footprint into pallet positions and a planning budget. Type in what you know about the space, and watch the numbers update as you go.
No email required to see your numbers. Everything runs right here on the page.
Rough numbers are fine. You can refine everything later with a real layout.
Not an engineering document. Final numbers come from a real layout and current inventory.
Broker or tenant rep sizing a building for a client? There's a version of this tool built around your workflow, with a printable one-pager to hand off.
No black box here. The estimate uses the same rules of thumb our designers use for a first pass, before a real layout replaces them:
Send your inputs and results to AMH. We will check them against current inventory, flag anything the model cannot see, and come back with numbers you can actually take to your CFO.
A real project manager reads it, not an autoresponder.
In-stock used rack can move your budget and timeline a lot.
Layout, freight, and install, priced for your building.
Square footage alone tells you surprisingly little. Two 100,000 sq ft buildings can hold wildly different pallet counts, because capacity is really decided by three things: how high you can stack (clear height and pallet height set your beam levels), how wide your aisles must be (your forklift sets that, not your preference), and how much of the floor is genuinely available for rack. The calculator above works the way a rack designer does on a first pass: net out the non-storage space, block the remainder into back-to-back rows with aisles, then count levels up to the ceiling.
The usable storage percentage is where most estimates go wrong. Docks, staging lanes, offices, restrooms, charging areas, and the open flow space that keeps a building from gridlocking all come out of your footprint before the first upright goes in. Most operations land somewhere between 60 and 75 percent usable, which is why the slider defaults to 70. If you drag it to 85 and the number looks great, be honest with yourself about where receiving is going to stage next March.
Priorities move budgets, so the calculator asks for yours. Rank price first and the estimate leans toward value engineering and quality used rack, which can run well below new pricing per position. Rank speed first and the number carries the premium of bigger crews and compressed schedules, but the timeline shortens. Rank precision first and it budgets for engineering time and exact-spec material. Same building, three honest numbers. That is not indecision in the model, it is how real projects actually price.
It is a planning-grade estimate, which is why the budget shows as a range instead of a single number. The assumptions behind it (96 inch beams, two pallets per bay, back-to-back rows, your usable percentage) are the standard starting point for selective rack. Building columns, dock doors, sprinkler rules, and seismic requirements all move the final count, and those only show up in a real layout. Treat this as the number you plan around, not the number you sign.
Beam capacity and steel gauge, upright height, your seismic zone, install labor rates in your market, and freight distance. The single biggest lever is usually new versus used: quality used rack can run up to 50 percent less per bay than new, and older domestic rack is often heavier gauge than what ships new today. Wire decking, guards, and permits add on top of the rack itself.
Both have a place, and many projects mix them. In-stock used rack ships in days instead of the typical 8 week new-rack lead time, costs meaningfully less, and is inspected and documented before it leaves our yard. New rack earns its premium when you need exact specifications, custom colors, or long matched runs. If your lease start date is fixed, ask about used first.