Palletizing Machine Buyer's Guide 2026: Payload, Throughput and Cell Type

The short answer: four numbers decide the machine

A palletizing machine is selected on four numbers, in this order: the mass of your heaviest single case including the tool that lifts it, your sustained cases per minute rather than your peak, the floor and ceiling you actually have, and how many different case sizes you will run in a normal week. Type, brand, arm reach and software all follow from those four.

Most bad palletizing projects are not bad robots. They are a machine chosen from a quotation that answered a different question than the one the buyer asked — a price per unit that assumed a perfect pattern, a payload figure that excluded the gripper, or a throughput that was measured on one product with the operators standing by. This guide is written to let you detect that mismatch before you sign, using the same arithmetic we use when a buyer sends us a case drawing and a shift pattern.

The five cell types, and the sentence that disqualifies each

Palletizing is usually described as a choice between "robotic" and "conventional". That framing hides three more options and, more importantly, hides the fact that each type has one requirement it cannot work around. The table below is organised around that requirement rather than around speed, because speed is the number vendors quote and the number buyers over-trust.

The rates above are planning figures, not catalogue figures. A catalogue rate is measured with one case size, an ideal pattern, no pallet exchange inside the measurement window, and an infeed that never gaps. Your line will have none of those four things simultaneously, which is why the next two sections are arithmetic rather than adjectives.

Why changeover flexibility, not speed, is usually the deciding factor

A plant running one case size for a season should not buy flexibility it will never use — a layer palletizer will outrun any robot on that duty and cost less per case at scale. A co-packer running nine case sizes across a week, with two of them appearing only when a customer books a promotion, is in the opposite position: on that duty the correct comparison is not cases per minute but minutes per changeover, multiplied by changeovers per week.

Ask for the changeover time as a measured number for a pattern change you actually need, not for a repeat of the pattern already loaded. If the answer is "our engineer changes it remotely", the real number includes the time to reach that engineer.

Payload is not the weight of your box

This is the single most common engineering error we see in inbound enquiries, and it is worth doing slowly. The payload rating on a palletizing arm is the mass the arm can hold at the flange, with the centre of gravity within the manufacturer's stated offset. Everything you bolt onto the flange spends part of that budget before your product is lifted.

The four deductions

• End-of-arm tooling mass. A vacuum plate with a frame, cups, vacuum generator and hose set typically lands between 5 and 9 kg on a carton cell. A mechanical bag clamp with a pneumatic group is often heavier. This mass is permanent — it is deducted from every single cycle.
• Multi-pick. Many buyers ask for two or four cases per cycle to raise throughput. That multiplication applies to the cases, not to the budget: two 10 kg cases plus 7 kg of tooling is 27 kg, which is over a 25 kg rating no matter how the cases are arranged.
• Centre-of-gravity offset. A case 800 mm long, gripped near one end, creates a moment the arm feels as extra load. Manufacturers publish a load diagram rather than a single number for exactly this reason; if the quotation quotes one number, ask for the diagram.
• Vacuum loss on porous board. Recycled corrugate and uncoated board leak air through the liner. A gripper sized for coated board can drop a case that looks identical. The correct specification is cup count and vacuum flow at the expected leak rate, not cup diameter.

A worked example from our own cell

Our TOPY-CPR30 collaborative palletizing cell is rated 25 kg payload with a 1,600 mm working radius, ±0.04 mm repeat positioning accuracy and a maximum stacking height of 2,100 mm including the pallet. Read plainly, that looks like "a 25 kg machine". In practice:

That is the whole argument. The machine did not get weaker between rows three and four. The buyer's mental model of "25 kg" did. When you write your requirement, write it as case mass, tooling mass and picks per cycle, and let the integrator do the sum.

Throughput: read "boxes per minute" as a range

A quoted rate is a nominal figure, measured on a pattern the vendor selected and an infeed that never stops. Any real line applies three derating factors, and the honest way to compare two quotations is to apply the same three to both.

The three losses

• Pattern complexity. A simple column stack of one case size runs at close to nominal. An interlocked pattern with rotated courses, or a mixed-SKU pallet, costs between 5 and 20 percent of cycle count, because the arm makes more small moves and the pattern logic has more states.
• Pallet exchange. If the cell must stop while a full pallet is removed, every pallet costs you the exchange time. Two pallet positions with an automatic exchange and a cell with one manual position have the same nominal rate and materially different daily output.
• Infeed gaps and stops. The palletizer can only place what arrives. Downstream checkweighing rejects, upstream film splices, and the natural gaps in a multi-product run all show up here — which is why the packing conveyor system between the wrapper and the cell matters as much as the cell.

Doing the sum

Take a cell quoted at 8 cases per minute, a case of 400 × 300 × 250 mm, and a 1,200 × 1,200 mm pallet:

Thirty pallets per shift is the number to put in a business case. Five is the number that appears in the brochure. Both are true, and only one of them is a plan.

Footprint, reach and the geometry nobody mentions

Working radius is usually drawn as a circle on a quotation, and that circle is misleading. A cell rated 1,600 mm reach does not reach 1,600 mm at every height: the arm's usable envelope narrows as it rises, and the published maximum stack height of 2,100 mm on our CPR30 is a best case — the figure we plan to in most installations is 1,600 mm, with 2,100 mm available on a 1,200 × 1,200 mm pallet in the right position. The shape that matters is the volume in which the arm can hold a case, not the radius on the data sheet.

What to measure before the drawing is made

• Ceiling height above the stack. The required clearance is the stack height plus the case plus the arm's vertical overtravel plus any lift column. A cell that needs 2.1 m of stack inside a room with a 2.4 m ceiling and a sprinkler main is a redesign, not a quotation. Plan on the 1,600 mm planning figure for stack height unless the layout has been checked for the full 2,100 mm.
• Pallet removal aisle. The cell occupies one footprint; the forklift removing a full pallet occupies another. Both need drawing, and the second is usually forgotten.
• Floor condition. Industrial floors are specified by flatness and levelness numbers, and a palletizing cell is one of the few pieces of equipment that cares. Uneven floor tilts the pallet, and a tilted pallet turns a repeatable pattern into a leaning one. Ask for the floor survey before the base is cast, and allow for shimming or grouting.
• Pallet size range. Our CPR30 accepts pallets up to 1,300 × 1,300 mm, which covers 1,200 × 1,000 and the 1,200 × 800 EUR pallet with margin. If you run export pallets outside that range, that is a specification item, not a detail.
• Case size range. The same cell is specified for cases between 260 and 800 mm long, 200 and 800 mm wide, and 150 and 800 mm high. A 150 mm case and an 800 mm case are both inside that range, but a pattern mixing them is a different engineering problem from a pattern of one size.

An accurate way to start: print the cell and the forklift aisle to scale on the factory floor in tape, run a shift around the tape for a day, and see what the fitters say. It costs one roll of tape and catches most layout arguments before they become drawings.

The case is the machine: what actually fails on a palletizer

In our experience the robot is rarely the part of a palletizing cell that causes trouble. The case, the pallet and the pattern cause the trouble, and all three are usually outside the supplier's control. A buyer who understands them gets a stable pallet; a buyer who does not gets a cell that works perfectly in the factory and poorly in the warehouse.

Five failure modes worth designing against

• Air in bagged product. A bag that leaves the wrapper with internal air will settle under its own stack weight, and a pallet built on the first night will be leaning by the third. Degassing, a short accumulation conveyor, or flipping the bag before palletizing solves it. No pattern solves it.
• Compression creep in corrugate. Board loses stacking strength with humidity and with time. A pallet stacked to the calculated limit in a dry month will fail in a humid one after weeks in storage. Design to the warehouse residence time, not to the day of packing — and check the board's edge crush specification rather than its basis weight.
• Overhang. A case that overhangs the pallet edge loses support for the layer above it. A small, uniform overhang on all four sides is tolerable; an irregular overhang from a pattern that was never squared is what breaks the wrap and the stack. This is a pattern-quality question, and it is measurable — see the acceptance section.
• Slip sheets and layer pads. Both add stability and both add cycle time. If your customer requires tie sheets or corner boards, say so in the quotation, because the gripper and the pattern are designed around them.
• Pallet quality. Pallet dimensional standards such as ISO 8611 exist for a reason. A cell that repeats to ±0.04 mm placing cases onto a pallet whose deck boards vary by 15 mm is wasting its accuracy. Agree a pallet rejection criterion with your supplier and enforce it at goods-in.

Safety in 2026: what the standards actually require

Safety is where a palletizing project most often becomes more expensive than the quotation, and where the gap between a marketing claim and a compliant installation is widest. Three things changed recently enough that older buying guides are out of date.

The standards that apply now

• ISO 10218-1:2025 and ISO 10218-2:2025 replaced the 2011 editions and absorbed the collaborative-robot requirements that previously lived in ISO/TS 15066:2016. Part 1 covers the robot, Part 2 covers the application and the robot cell. The 2025 revision also introduces cyber-security requirements for networked robot systems — relevant the moment your cell is connected to a line control or a factory network.
• EN ISO 12100 remains the risk-assessment method. The assessment, not the data sheet, determines whether a guard is required.
• Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 replaces the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC and applies from 20 January 2027. Machinery placed on the EU market before that date is assessed under the Directive; after it, the Regulation. Two practical consequences for a 2026 purchase: digital instructions become the default with paper available on request, and obligations extend to importers and distributors — so if you are importing, you inherit duties that used to sit only with the builder.

The collaborative claim, examined

"Collaborative" describes a robot's design, not your cell's compliance. Power-and-force limiting only removes the need for guarding if the application stays inside the limits in the risk assessment — and a palletizing application moving a 14 kg case at the arm's rated 1.2 m/s generally does not, because the transient contact force in a pinch against the pallet or the conveyor frame is well above the quasi-static values in the collaborative standard. On our CPR30 the safety fence, light curtain and safety mat are options, and the honest answer to "do I need them?" is: your risk assessment decides, and for a cell of this payload the assessment usually says yes for the pallet and conveyor zones, even if the pick zone can be open.

Budget for guarding honestly. A fence, a gate with an interlock and a safety-rated stop circuit is a real cost, and it is a cost that does not appear in a quotation that assumed an open cell. If the guarding is excluded, ask what it costs installed before you compare suppliers.

Where a 25 kg collaborative cell is the wrong answer

We build collaborative palletizing cells, so it is worth being direct about when we tell a buyer not to buy one. Four conditions, each of which is sufficient on its own:

The reverse case is equally worth stating. If your line runs a handful of case sizes, the rate is modest, the floor is tight, and the changeover happens weekly, an industrial arm is over-specified and a layer palletizer will never be re-patterned fast enough. The palletizing machines we build are aimed at that middle ground, and the portable robotic palletizer version exists because that middle ground is often two lines in the same building, one of which needs the cell this month and the other next year.

The thirteen points a real quotation must contain

Use this as a checklist against any palletizing quotation, ours included. A supplier who cannot answer a point should say so; a supplier who answers all thirteen has done the engineering.

1. Case mass range, tooling mass, and picks per cycle, with the payload sum shown.
2. Case dimension range and the pattern drawing for each family you will run.
3. Pallet size range and maximum stack height including pallet.
4. Measured cycle time over 100 consecutive cycles, and the pattern it was measured on.
5. Sustained hourly rate including pallet exchange, with the derating factors stated.
6. Cell footprint, overall height, and the forklift removal aisle assumed.
7. Guarding solution: fence, interlock, scanner or mat, and which is included in the price.
8. Risk assessment to EN ISO 12100 and the safety functions with their claimed performance level.
9. Declaration of Conformity, and the conformity route for your market and your 2026 shipping date.
10. Infeed interface: conveyor height, accumulation length, and what happens when the line stops.
11. Changeover procedure and measured time for a new pattern, by whom.
12. Spare parts list with consumable life for cups, seals and belts.
13. Acceptance criteria and the test protocol you will both sign at handover.

Acceptance: how to test a palletizer before you pay

A palletizing cell is easy to demonstrate and harder to accept, because the demonstration shows the machine working and acceptance has to show it working under your conditions. The protocol below is the one we run; if your supplier's protocol has fewer measurements, add them before the machine ships.

What to measure, and what not to confuse

Note what is not on the list: repeat positioning accuracy. A figure like ±0.04 mm describes how precisely the arm returns to a taught point. It does not describe how square your pallet will be, because the stack depends on the case, the board and the pattern. Treat it as an engineering quality indicator, not a delivery specification.

The same discipline applies to the machine before it leaves the builder. Our factory acceptance test checklist covers the pre-shipment run in the same measurable terms.

Cost and ROI: the numbers that actually decide a palletizing machine purchase

Palletizing machines are quoted all over the map, because a "palletizing machine" can mean a lift assist and a robot cell with two pallet positions and guarding. Rather than quote a price band that will be wrong for your case, here is the structure of the cost and a worked example with the assumptions written down so you can replace them with yours.

What is in the number

• Robot or mechanism, sized on payload after tooling.
• End-of-arm tooling, which is often 8 to 15 percent of the cell and is where cheap quotations economise.
• Infeed and pallet conveyors, plus accumulation — the part most often excluded.
• Guarding and safety functions, plus the risk assessment and the Declaration of Conformity.
• Pattern software and the HMI, and whether pattern changes need the supplier.
• Installation, commissioning, training, and sea freight with the duties and documentation of your market — our shipping cost and transit note covers the freight side in detail.
• Spares and consumables: vacuum cups, seals, belts. Small per year, and the item that stops a cell when nobody stocked it.

A worked model, with the assumptions visible

Run those against your own numbers and the model will tell you something useful in about ten minutes. If the labour saving alone does not return the capital inside roughly two years, the honest justification for the cell is usually not labour at all — it is consistency of pallet quality, the removal of a manual handling injury risk, or the ability to run a third shift without recruiting. Those are legitimate reasons. They are just different reasons, and they belong in the business case under their own heading, because a business case built on a labour saving that will not materialise is the one that gets a good project cancelled at the second review.

FAQ

How this guide was written

Author and standing. This guide is written by the TOP Y Machinery engineering team in Foshan, Guangdong. We design and build food packaging machinery and the end-of-line equipment around it, including the CPR30 collaborative palletizing cell referenced throughout, and we commission those cells in customers' plants. That is our commercial interest and it is stated here rather than left for you to find.

What the technical content is based on. Payload, reach, stack height, pallet and case limits, accuracy and installed power for the CPR30 are the figures we publish on the robotic palletizing and carton handling pages, measured on our own cells. The throughput arithmetic is set out in full above so you can redo it with your own case and pallet. The standards references are to published documents: ISO 10218-1:2025 and ISO 10218-2:2025, ISO/TS 15066:2016, EN ISO 12100, ISO 8611 for pallets, and Regulation (EU) 2023/1230, which applies from 20 January 2027. Where a number is a planning figure rather than a measured one, it says so.

What this guide does not do. It does not quote you a price, because a price without a case drawing is a guess. It does not claim a customer return on investment, because the labour rate is yours and the shift pattern is yours. And it does not tell you that a collaborative cell fits every application — three sections above exist specifically to help you rule it out.

Review. Reviewed 2026-10-29. The standards and regulation references in the safety section are the ones that change most often, and that section will be re-checked each time the machinery regulation guidance is updated, before January 2027 at the latest. If you find an error in this guide, tell us and we will correct it and note the correction.

If you want the arithmetic in this guide run against your own case, send the case mass, dimensions, pallet size, sustained rate and shift pattern to our engineering team. We will tell you which of the five cell types fits, and which one does not.