Warehouse Storage & Capacity Planner
A free warehouse space calculator and capacity planner. Work out how many pallets your warehouse can store, or how much floor space a new warehouse needs. Floor storage or selective racking, with your equipment, aisles, height and operational space. Every result shows its working.
Your warehouse plan
Advanced options
Defaults are typical planning figures. Change any of them to match your site.
Result
Layout view
- Storage
- Aisles
- Reserved area
How the floor is allocated
Layout
How this was calculated
Assumptions and details
Printed from warehousecalc.com. Results are planning estimates; confirm them before you rely on them.
How the planner works
The more you tell it, the more detailed the result. Each result is labelled so you can see which level of detail it is based on.
| You enter | You get |
|---|---|
| Your existing racking (count) | An exact count: aisles × racked sides × bays per side × pallets per bay × levels, plus the building height those levels use and a check against your truck’s lift height. |
| Total floor area only | An area-based planning estimate. The planner uses a repeating module of storage rows and aisles, because the real shape of the building is unknown. |
| Length and width | A physical layout: whole rack rows or pallet blocks, whole bays, aisles, wall clearance and reserved space. |
| Clear height and load height | The number of storage levels that fit, also limited by how high your equipment can lift. |
| Your own rack configuration | Positions based on your real beam length, frame depth and pallets per bay. |
How much warehouse space do you need?
Choose New warehouse mode to use the planner as a warehouse space calculator. You can start from the pallet positions you need (the planner estimates the floor area and suggests building dimensions with whole rows and bays), or from the area you have available (it estimates the pallet positions under your planning assumptions).
The space you need is always more than the number of pallets multiplied by one pallet footprint, because aisles, wall clearance and operational areas take a large share of the floor. The result shows how the floor is split.
Warehouse space calculation: a worked example
How much space does a new warehouse need for 1,000 pallet positions? Standard 1,200 × 1,000 mm pallets, 1,500 mm high when loaded, in selective racking served by a reach truck, in a building with 8 m clear internal height.
- Levels. Each level needs the load height plus a lifting clearance plus the beam: 1,500 + 150 + 120 = 1,770 mm. The usable height is 8 m minus the 1 m kept free below the roof or sprinklers = 7.0 m. Four levels use 4 × 1.77 m, less the 0.12 m beam that is not needed above the top load = 6.96 m; a fifth would need 8.73 m. So 4 levels, within the reach truck’s lift of about 10 m.
- Positions on each level. 1,000 ÷ 4 = 250 pallet positions per level.
- Area estimate. A repeating module of rack rows and 2.9 m aisles, plus 10% for cross aisles and 10% for receiving, dispatch and staging, gives about 947 m².
- A layout that fits. About 45.2 m × 22.6 m (1,022 m²): 5 rack rows (3 back-to-back, 2 single) along 4 aisles, 16 bays per row, 2 pallets per bay = 256 positions per level, 1,024 positions on 4 levels.
| How the floor is used | Area | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Storage footprint (the racking itself) | 349 m² | 34% |
| Aisles and access | 496 m² | 49% |
| Reserved / operational space | 98 m² | 10% |
| Other (wall clearance, gaps, leftover strips) | 79 m² | 8% |
Only about a third of the floor holds pallets: aisles take almost half. That is why the space you need is always much more than the number of pallets times one pallet footprint. The same 1,000 positions on one level, with no height, would need about 3,700 m². Height, aisle width and the truck you choose change the answer more than anything else. Enter your own figures in the planner above to see how.
Racking terms used in the planner
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Aisle | The working space the truck drives along. Racking usually stands on both sides of it. |
| Rack row (side) | A continuous line of racking along one side of an aisle. An aisle with racking left and right serves two rack rows. |
| Bay | One section of a rack row, between two uprights. Bays are counted along the row. |
| Level | One storage height in the racking. The floor position counts as the first level. |
| Pallet position | The space for one pallet: one bay, one level, one pallet slot. |
Example: 4 aisles with racking on both sides, 20 bays along each side, 2 pallets per bay and 6 levels: 4 × 2 × 20 × 2 × 6 = 1,920 pallet positions. Choose Count my existing racking in the planner to work this out for your own warehouse.
Aisle width depends on the equipment
There is no single correct aisle width. It depends on the truck, the load size, the rack layout and how busy the aisle is. The planner fills in a typical figure for the equipment you choose, which you should replace with your own truck’s data.
| Equipment | Typical aisle in published guides | Planner default |
|---|---|---|
| Counterbalance forklift | about 3.5 to 4.0 m | 3.6 m, lift about 6 m |
| Reach truck | about 2.7 to 3.1 m | 2.9 m, lift about 10 m |
| VNA truck | about 1.6 to 1.9 m, with guided aisles and very flat floors | 1.8 m, lift about 12 m |
| Pallet truck / pallet jack | depends on the truck and pallet | 2.5 m, floor level only |
The figure that matters is your truck maker’s stated right-angle stacking aisle for your load, plus a safety margin. Load overhang into the aisle reduces the clear width.
How storage levels are estimated
Level height = loaded pallet height + handling clearance (default 150 mm) + beam depth (default 120 mm).
Levels that fit = the ground level plus as many beam levels as fit below the clear height minus the top clearance (default 1,000 mm below the roof, lights or sprinklers, the space many fire rules ask for).
The result is also limited by the typical lift height of the equipment. If the loaded pallet height or the clear internal height is left blank, the planner shows pallet positions per level and says what it needs. You can also enter the number of vertical storage levels directly.
Rack design, beam and upright load ratings and sprinkler clearances must be confirmed by your racking supplier and fire-safety requirements. Enter the weight per pallet to see the load on each beam level.
How the floor is allocated
The result shows how the gross floor area splits into storage footprint, aisles and access, reserved operational space (receiving, dispatch, staging, QC, packing) and other space such as wall clearance and leftover strips. This is a description of the plan, not a score: the right balance depends on how busy the warehouse is and how it is run.
Theoretical capacity is the gross area divided by one pallet footprint, times the levels. It ignores aisles and is an upper limit only. Planned capacity is the layout-based figure you can plan with.
Floor storage or racking?
Floor storage (block stacking) needs no racking, and suits large quantities of the same item whose loads can carry the weight of pallets above. Access is its weakness: deep lanes make first-in, first-out and expiry control harder. Racking gives every pallet its own reachable position and uses height without loading pallets on each other. Try both methods in the planner with the same building to compare. The guide How to work out how many pallets fit in a warehouse explains the method step by step.
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Last updated: 10 November 2026.