Air vs Ocean Freight: How to Choose (and What Chargeable Weight Means)

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Your goods are ready. The factory asks: "Air or sea?"

Most founders answer with a feeling. "Air is fast, sea is cheap." That's true, but it's not enough to make a good decision. The real answer depends on how your goods are priced, and that comes down to one idea most people never learn: you don't always pay for the real weight.

Here's how freight pricing actually works.

How air freight is priced

Planes run out of space before they run out of weight. So airlines charge for whichever is bigger:

• the actual weight (what the scale says), or
• the volume weight (how much space it takes)

The bigger number is called the chargeable weight.

How to work out volume weight for air freight:

Length × Width × Height (in cm) ÷ 6,000 = volume weight in kg

Courier services (like express door-to-door) often divide by 5,000 instead, which makes light, bulky boxes cost even more.

Example: one carton of pillows, 60 × 50 × 50 cm, weighs 8 kg.

• Volume weight: 60 × 50 × 50 ÷ 6,000 = 25 kg
• Actual weight: 8 kg
• You pay for 25 kg

That's why light, bulky products (pillows, plush toys, lampshades, empty bottles) are expensive to fly. And why small, heavy, valuable products (jewelry, phone parts, watches) often fly happily.

How ocean freight is priced

Sea freight comes in two main types.

LCL (Less than Container Load): your goods share a container with other people's goods. You pay mainly by volume, in cubic metres (CBM). Most forwarders charge a minimum, often around 1 CBM.

CBM per carton = Length × Width × Height (in metres)
Example: 0.6 × 0.5 × 0.5 = 0.15 CBM

FCL (Full Container Load): you book the whole container. You pay one price for the box, whether it's full or not.

A rough rule: once your shipment gets to around 15 CBM or more, a full 20-foot container is often worth comparing with LCL. Ask your forwarder for both prices.

For LCL, also expect extra fees at both ends: loading into the shared container, unloading, and handling at the destination warehouse. These add up on small shipments.

Time: how long does each take?

Every route is different, but as a rough guide from Asia:

	Typical time door to door
Express courier	about 3–7 days
Air freight	about 5–10 days (with customs and delivery)
Sea, FCL	about 3–6 weeks
Sea, LCL	often 1–2 weeks longer than FCL (waiting for the container to fill, then unloading)

Add extra time around Chinese New Year, Golden Week in October, and the busy months before the holidays.

When to choose air

• Samples and first small orders, when speed matters more than cost
• Small, heavy, high-value goods, where the freight is a small part of the price
• Urgent restocks when you're about to sell out
• Launch dates you can't move

When to choose sea

• Regular orders and anything bulky or heavy
• Lower-value products, where freight would eat your margin
• When you've planned ahead. Sea freight rewards good planning

Many brands do both

A common plan: send a small part of the order by air so you can start selling, and the rest by sea to keep costs down. It costs a bit more overall, but it protects your launch date.

Things that can change the plan

• Batteries: lithium batteries have strict rules for air freight. Some products can only go by sea. Check before you plan an air launch.
• Liquids, sprays and fragrances: may count as dangerous goods. They need the right paperwork and sometimes can't fly.
• Carton size: a few centimetres smaller can save a lot, by air or by sea. Ask the factory about carton size early, not after production.

Simple decision checklist

1. Work out your chargeable weight for air and your CBM for sea
2. Get both quotes from your forwarder, door to door
3. Divide each by the number of units: what's the freight cost per unit?
4. Compare that with your margin and your deadline
5. Choose. Or split it

The bottom line

Air is fast and expensive, sea is slow and cheap, but the real decision comes from the numbers: chargeable weight, CBM and freight cost per unit. Do the math before production ends, and you'll never have to choose in a panic.

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