Box price lists confuse people, and it isn't the customer's fault. There are three different quantities in play, boxes, bundles, and bales, and most suppliers publish a number without telling you which one it refers to.
Here's how ours works, and how to read any box price list you're handed.
You buy boxes in bundles, not one at a time
A bundle is the smallest quantity we sell. It's a stack of flat, unassembled boxes, strapped together and ready to lift.
The bundle count depends on the box. On our 8x8x8, a bundle is 25 boxes. On an 18x18x16, it's 20. On an 18x18x24, it's 15. Bigger boxes mean fewer per bundle, because a bundle is sized around what one person can reasonably carry rather than a fixed number.
This is why you can't order 30 boxes. Orders go up in bundle multiples, 25, 50, 75 and so on for a 25-per-bundle size. The quantity selector on each product page already steps in the right increment, so you don't have to do the arithmetic.
Check the bundle count on the product page before you order rather than assuming it matches your last purchase. It's listed as Per bundle on the Ready to Ship table and on every product page, and it changes across sizes.
A bale is the full production quantity
Alongside the bundle count you'll see a skid count: 750 on the 8x8x8, 250 on a 16x12x12, 120 on the larger sizes.
A bale, or full skid, is how the box comes off the line: the full run, strapped and stacked as a single unit. It's the quantity that makes sense for an operation going through one size steadily rather than ordering a few bundles at a time.
Both numbers sit side by side on the Ready to Ship table as Per bundle and Per skid, so you can see at a glance how many bundles make up a full skid.
The prices you see are per box
This is the part worth being clear about. Every price on our site is the cost of a single box, not the cost of a bundle.
So $0.74 on the 8x8x8 means 74 cents per box. Order one bundle of 25 and your line total is $18.50. The per-box figure is the useful one for comparing sizes and working out your packaging cost per shipment, which is why it's the number we publish.
Volume breaks step at 125, 250, 500, and 750
Across our range, price breaks fall at the same four thresholds: 125, 250, 500, and 750 bundles, on top of the single-bundle price.
The way to read it is by where your order falls. If your order comes in under 125 bundles, every box is priced at the 1-bundle rate. Reach 125 and the whole order reprices at that tier, and so on up the ladder. The discount applies automatically in your cart, so there's nothing to enter.
Two things to know about how much that's actually worth.
On sizes with a volume ladder, roughly a quarter comes off the per-box price by the top tier. Across our tiered range the total drop from the single-bundle price to the deepest tier sits around 26 percent, with most sizes landing between 20 and 30.
Most of that arrives early. On a typical size, about 60 percent of the total available discount is already captured by the 250 threshold. The steps above it are real but smaller. That matters when you're deciding how deep to go: the jump from one tier to the next is worth far more at the bottom of the ladder than at the top.
Not every size has a volume ladder
Some of our sizes carry a single flat price that doesn't change with quantity. That includes our Ready to Ship range, the sizes we keep on the floor.
This isn't an oversight. It's the trade-off: stocked sizes are priced sharply from the first bundle and ship in one to two days, so there's no discount to unlock by ordering deeper. What you see is the price.
Practically, it means if you're buying a Ready to Ship size, order the quantity you actually need. You aren't leaving money on the table by taking two bundles instead of twenty, and you don't need to phone to ask whether a better rate exists.
The volume ladder applies to sizes produced to order, where quantity genuinely changes the cost of the run.
Working out what to order
Three questions settle it.
What's your monthly usage of this size? Divide a tier quantity by it. If a threshold represents more than a year of stock, you're paying today for boxes you'll use next summer, tying up cash and floor space to save cents per unit. Corrugated doesn't spoil, but it does absorb humidity in a damp warehouse, and a stack you shuffle around for eleven months has a cost that never appears on the invoice.
Where will it go? Flat corrugated stacks efficiently, but skid quantities of the larger sizes need real floor space and ground-level receiving.
Are you near a threshold? If your usual order sits just under a break, the extra bundles may cost less per box than the ones you're already buying. Worth a look before you submit.
The pattern most of our regulars settle on
Buy your highest-volume size deep, and everything else by the bundle.
If one size covers most of what you ship, that's where the volume math pays. Carrying six sizes at depth turns a stockroom into a warehouse for boxes you use occasionally.
Ask us
If you'd rather not work it out from a table, tell us your monthly volumes by size and we'll tell you honestly which tier fits, including when the answer is to stay on single bundles.
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Still choosing a size? Start with what size corrugated box you need.
Weighing strength as well as quantity? See what 32 ECT means.
Prime Carton manufactures corrugated boxes at 860 Progress Avenue in Scarborough and delivers across the Greater Toronto Area.
Call 416-431-5848 or email info@primecarton.com.