Van or lorry?
A simple call.

Fleet · 14 January 2026

Start with weight and pallets

The first question is size. Vans cover the lighter end, from a small van's roughly 400kg up to a Sprinter's 1,000 to 1,200kg and three to four pallets. Beyond that you are into lorry territory, where a 7.5-tonne carries around ten pallets and an articulated lorry up to roughly 26.

Match the load to those bands honestly. A handful of boxes or a few pallets is clearly a van job, while ten pallets or several tonnes plainly needs a lorry. The aim is to keep the whole load on one vehicle and one run, rather than splitting it across trips or paying for space you will not use.

Then think about access

Capacity is only half the decision; the destination has to take the vehicle. A lorry might be the efficient choice on paper, but if the delivery point has tight roads, a low bridge or no room to turn, a smaller vehicle that can actually reach the door wins every time.

It works the other way too. A site with a loading bay and a forklift makes a lorry easy, while a home or a constrained address often points to a van, perhaps with a tail-lift. Checking access before booking avoids the worst outcome: the right capacity arriving at a place it cannot get into.

Weigh it up on cost

Cost usually follows naturally from the first two. A van is the more economical choice for smaller loads, so there is no sense booking a lorry you will not fill. But once a load would take a van several trips, a single lorry run often works out simpler and better value despite the larger vehicle.

The trick is to size for the real load and the real access, then let the price reflect it. Jobs are priced per job and on the route, with a fixed quote before the driver sets off, so you can compare options clearly. If you are still unsure, our choosing a vehicle guide walks through every size in turn.

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