1 – 2 sec
Open and square
The box is opened and pushed square. Anything that will not square up has permanent set from overloading or bad storage and is immediately capped at 4A.
Sizes & specs · grading
Five rungs, written down, with the reject criteria included.
A grade is a promise about what you will find when the trailer doors open. There is no industry standard behind it — so ours is published in full, including what fails a box at every level, and every lot is photographed before it ships.
- Grades
- 1A through 5A
- Standard
- Ours, published
- Every lot
- Photographed before shipping
Ask for a grade
Put the grade in the Grade field and the size in Product Type. If you are unsure, describe the job and we will recommend one.
Answer first
Buy the lowest grade that survives the job.
Corrugated loses strength through moisture, crushing and repeated folding — not through scuffs, labels or faded print. That single fact separates the two things a grade describes: structural condition, which decides whether the box works, and cosmetic condition, which decides whether anyone minds.
A 3A box with four old labels and a scuffed side wall carries the same load as a 1A. If the box never leaves your building, the only difference you will ever notice is the roughly 30% you did not spend.
1AFirst use — as-newOne trip, or none
Condition
Square, clean, no printing bleed-through, no staple pulls, no crush at the top edge. Corner posts sharp. Often surplus from an over-ordered production run rather than a genuine second-hand box.
Best for
Food-contact with a liner, pharma inbound, anything photographed for a customer, export where customs will open and re-close.
Price band
Highest used band — still typically 40–55% under a new box of the same spec.
Automatic reject
Any water line, any repair tape, any odour.
2ALight use — clean and squareOne to two trips
Condition
Structurally untouched, minor scuffing, maybe a single previous label. Flaps intact and unstapled or cleanly stapled once. Stacks to full rated height.
Best for
Everyday production packing, regrind, returns, retail reverse logistics, most shipping applications.
Price band
The value sweet spot — the grade most customers reorder once they try it.
Automatic reject
Delamination, punctures, crushed corners.
3ASound with cosmetic wearTwo to four trips
Condition
Honest wear: multiple labels, scuffed print, light edge crush on one corner, surface abrasion. Nothing that changes how it loads or how high it stacks — but it will not photograph well.
Best for
In-plant WIP movement, scrap and recycling collection, floor bins, anything that never leaves your building.
Price band
Low. Usually the cheapest box that still stacks two high loaded.
Automatic reject
Through-punctures, soft or damp board, missing flaps.
4ARepairable / heavy useFour or more trips
Condition
Needs work before it runs again: re-taping, re-stapling, a flap patch, sometimes a full sleeve replacement. We sell it as-is at a discount, or reconditioned at a middle price.
Best for
Customers with an in-house repair bench, single-trip internal use, one-way scrap shipments.
Price band
Very low as-is. Reconditioned pricing sits between 3A and 2A.
Automatic reject
Contamination, mould, anything that smells.
5AMixed load — best priceUnsorted
Condition
An honest mixed pallet: sizes, walls and conditions together, sold by the load rather than the unit. What arrives is what came in that week, photographed before it ships.
Best for
Buyers who sort their own, small recyclers, art and prop departments, anyone who needs volume more than consistency.
Price band
The floor. Often priced per truckload, not per box.
Automatic reject
We still pull anything wet, contaminated or hazardous before it goes on a load.
Matching
Which grade for which job.
If your application is not listed, the rule of thumb holds: structural demand sets the floor, visibility sets the ceiling.
| Application | Grade | Why | Typical saving vs 1A |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-facing shipment, photographed | 1A | Cosmetics are part of the deliverable | — |
| Outbound to a trade customer | 2A | Clean and square without paying for perfection | 15 – 25% |
| Food ingredient with a certified liner | 2A | Liner handles contact; box handles load | 15 – 25% |
| Internal WIP between departments | 3A | Nobody outside sees it; strength is unchanged | 30 – 40% |
| Scrap and regrind collection | 3A | Hard life ahead; cosmetics irrelevant | 30 – 40% |
| One-way outbound scrap shipment | 4A | Single trip, then baled at destination | 45 – 60% |
| High-volume buyer who sorts in-house | 5A | Best price per unit; you supply the labour | 50 – 70% |
| Export where customs will open it | 1A – 2A | Re-closing a worn box at a border is a real risk | 0 – 25% |
Our reject rules
Six things that fail a box at any grade.
These are not grade-dependent. A box showing any of them does not enter stock, whatever else is right about it.
Moisture above 12%
Measured with a pin meter. Damp board loses edge crush strength fast and never fully recovers it.
Odour
If it smells of anything, the next customer's product will too. No exceptions, including 'it will air out'.
Residue or contamination
Chemical, food or unidentified. It goes to the baler or back on the truck it arrived on.
Delamination
Liners separating from flutes. The box may look square and will fail under load without warning.
Through-punctures in a load-bearing face
A hole in a side wall interrupts the vertical column that carries stacking load.
Crushed bottom edge
The single most common real failure, and the one that a photograph of the top of a pallet will never show.
Questions
Grading, answered.
Is there an industry standard for gaylord box grades?
No. The 1A to 5A vocabulary is widely used but there is no governing body and no enforced definition, which means one supplier's 2A can be another's 4A. That is precisely why we publish our ladder with written reject criteria and photograph the specific lot you are quoted.
Which grade should I buy?
Buy the lowest grade that survives the job and satisfies who sees it. If the box never leaves your building, 3A is almost always right. If a customer opens it, 2A. If it is photographed or food-adjacent, 1A. Buying 1A for internal material handling is the most common and most expensive mistake in this market.
Do lower grades carry less weight?
Grades 1A through 3A carry essentially the full rating, because cosmetic wear does not reduce edge crush strength. Grade 4A is derated until it has been reconditioned, and 5A is unsorted so no single rating applies. Any box with visible edge crush is derated and marked regardless of grade.
Can I mix grades in one order?
Yes, and plenty of customers do - 2A for outbound shipments and 3A for internal movement on the same delivery, banded and labelled separately so the floor cannot mix them up.
Inside the bench
The eleven-second inspection, step by step.
Every box that enters this building goes through this. Not a sample — every box. Roughly 480,000 decisions a year.
3 – 4 sec
Vertical edges
Hands run down all four. Crushing or rounding here removes part of the load path and cannot be repaired — automatic downgrade regardless of everything else.
5 – 6 sec
Bottom edge and base
Turned to check the bottom edge, which accounts for 61% of all our rejections. Score-line cracks in the base panel are checked at the same time.
7 sec
Moisture meter
Pin meter on the bottom course. Under 9% passes, 9–12% derates, above 12% rejects. The board rarely feels damp at any of those readings.
8 – 9 sec
Delamination and punctures
Liners checked for separation from the flutes, walls checked for through-punctures in load-bearing faces.
10 sec
Odour and residue
A deliberate sniff and a look at the interior. Any odour at all, any residue of unknown origin, and the box does not enter stock.
11 sec
Mark and route
Grade written on the box, plus the reject reason if it failed. Stock, bench, cutting table or baler — one of four destinations, decided here.
Where grades come from
Source sector predicts condition better than anything else.
Twelve months of our own grading data, cross-referenced against where each load came from. The spread is wider than anyone expects.
| Sector | 2A or better | Rejected | Main reject reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food and beverage | 58% | 4% | Odour or residue |
| Plastics processing | 51% | 6% | Cut discharge ports |
| E-commerce and 3PL | 44% | 9% | Bottom-edge crush |
| Automotive | 41% | 7% | Rack damage to corners |
| General manufacturing | 37% | 11% | Outdoor storage |
| Recyclers and waste | 22% | 19% | Moisture, contamination |
Verifying a supplier
How to check that anyone's grades mean anything.
There is no governing body for this vocabulary. These six checks work on us and on every competitor.
- Ask for the written grading standard — the document, not a description of it
- Ask what gets a box rejected at each grade, and see whether the answer is specific
- Ask for photographs of the actual lot, including one bottom edge
- Ask what happens to boxes that fail their grading — the answer reveals their incentives
- Buy one pallet and hold it against the written standard before scaling
- Ask what the boxes previously held; any real inbound process records the source sector
Not sure which grade? Describe the job instead.
Tell us what goes in the box, where it travels and who opens it. We will name the grade — and we will talk you down one if the application allows.