Wood Pallet and Container Manufacturer Revenue Benchmark

Average Wood Pallet and Container Manufacturer Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every wood container and pallet manufacturer with paid employees and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of manufacturers gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$6,228,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $18.3 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 2,933 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $6,228,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Wood Container and Pallet Manufacturing, NAICS 321920. The category covers manufacturers of wood pallets, wood boxes, crates and other wood containers and their parts. Sawmills and pallet recyclers that do not manufacture are counted elsewhere. Classified separately in group 3219: 321911 Wood Window and Door Manufacturing; 321912 Cut Stock, Resawing Lumber, and Planing; 321918 Other Millwork (including Flooring), and 3 further codes. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.

Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed September 2026

Employer Establishments at Year Five Varies by cohort

Other wood product manufacturing, NAICS 3219, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 44.0 to 64.5 percent. This benchmark covers Other wood product manufacturing, NAICS 3219, as a whole, and this category accounts for 2,933 of the 9,654 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.

Payroll share of receipts, Wood Container and Pallet Manufacturing, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 16.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a small share because lumber and nails carry most of the cost of a pallet while assembly is partly automated on nailing lines.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes lumber, fasteners, delivery trucks and the purchase of used pallet cores, which together carry most of what a plant spends.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.

Scale and ownership, Wood Container and Pallet Manufacturing, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 22.1 people, and the industry averaged 1.2 employer establishments per firm, which confirms that multi-establishment ownership exists in the published population without showing how establishments are distributed across firms. As an illustration, that headcount could cover cutting and nailing lines, a yard crew and drivers.

These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.

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Data Source Notice

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Wood Pallet and Container Manufacturer: what lumber, recycling and trucking do to a commodity producer's average.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• New pallets or recycled? Building new pallets from lumber and repairing used cores for resale are different businesses with different margins, and many plants do both. The mix behind a manufacturer's receipts decides its exposure to lumber prices.
• What does lumber cost this year? Low-grade lumber prices move with sawmill output and housing demand, and pallet prices follow with a lag that a plant absorbs in the meantime.
• How far do the trucks go? Pallets are bulky and low in value per load, so a plant's market is limited by trucking distance and its own fleet. Freight cost per pallet shapes the business more than the nailing line does.
• Who are the customers? A plant serving a few large shippers or growers has predictable volume and negotiated prices, while one serving many small customers spends more on sales and delivery. Customer concentration decides how a lost account lands.
• How automated is the plant? Automated nailing lines raise output per worker but need capital and volume to pay off, while hand assembly keeps costs variable. The level of automation behind a plant's revenue varies widely.
• Which standards apply? Pallets crossing borders need heat treatment certification, and customers in food and pharmaceutical supply chains have their own specifications. Certification and quality systems are costs outside a revenue figure.