Sydney is the one market in the country where you are almost never waiting on stock. Between Port Botany and the western depot pool at Chullora, Yennora, Villawood and Erskine Park, every size in every grade is generally standing on the ground somewhere in the basin. That changes the question worth asking. In most places the question is what can I get. In Sydney it is what do I actually need — because the basin has all of it, and the only thing left to work out is which vehicle can get it to you.
Prices last updated 03/08/2026| Size | Used from* | New from* |
|---|---|---|
| 10ft | $4,350 | $6,400 |
| 20ft | $2,200 | $3,300 |
| 40ft | $2,600 | $5,500 |
| 40ft High Cube | $3,400 | $5,500 |
The container figures are national and they do not move with your postcode. The delivery does, and that is the number worth asking about first. Full shipping container price list · how delivery is worked out.
Grades matter, and this is where a cheap container gets expensive. Cargo-worthy is the grade we check wind and watertight before it leaves the depot. As-is units are cheaper again and are not sold watertight — they may carry a patched repair, a soft spot in the floor or a door seal that no longer seats, and we will tell you exactly what is wrong with one before you buy it. New single-trip units are sealed and unmarked. If a container has to keep rain off what is inside it, buy cargo-worthy or better.
Around Sydney it is mostly site storage on the knock-down rebuilds and infill blocks right across the middle ring, trade and tool storage through the industrial estates at Smithfield, Wetherill Park, Ingleburn, Seven Hills and Silverwater, secure storage on the growth-corridor builds at Marsden Park, Box Hill, Oran Park and Leppington, household storage through the endless renovation cycle in the inner west and on the north shore, and shell units bought for fitout by the businesses that do that work out west.
In a thin market you take the unit that is available. In Sydney you do not have to, and that is worth more than shaving a hundred dollars off a sticker. Every grade is here in volume, so the sensible way to buy is to work out what the job needs and then buy exactly that, rather than starting from the cheapest advertised number and hoping it stretches.
The published gap is the whole decision in one figure: a used cargo-worthy 20ft starts at $2,200 ex GST and a new single-trip 20ft starts at $3,300. Cargo-worthy is checked wind and watertight before it leaves the depot and is the right answer for most storage. New is worth the $1,100 when the container will be looked at, when you are lining or fitting it out, or when the contents genuinely cannot get damp. As-is units are cheaper again and are not sold watertight — good for a shell, a compound or a cut-up, wrong for anything you want to stay dry.
Depth of stock also means cosmetic condition varies enormously between cargo-worthy units that are all structurally fine. Ask for photos of the actual unit — we send them on request, before delivery — rather than accepting whatever comes off the stack.
Most of our markets are priced by how far the truck has to travel. Sydney is not. The containers are already in the basin, so the run is short by national standards, and what actually moves the delivery is which vehicle your address requires and how long it takes that vehicle to do the job.
A tilt-tray reversing onto a level hardstand in Ingleburn and a crane truck lifting over a terrace roof in Newtown are not the same piece of work, and no honest table could carry one figure for both. So we quote it with the container, against your actual address, before anything is booked. It also means the single most useful thing you can do for your own quote is send three photographs — the street, the entry and where it has to end up.
Two Sydney-specific things worth mentioning at the enquiry rather than on the day: clearway and parking restrictions on the street, which decide the window a truck can work in, and whether the site is strata or body corporate ground, which decides whether anyone has approved it going there at all.
On our own published numbers a used 40ft is the best value in the range — $2,600 against $2,200 for a 20ft, for double the volume. In most of Australia that is straightforwardly the buy. In Sydney it frequently is not, because a 40ft needs a long straight run to be placed and a very large share of Sydney addresses simply do not have one. Value per cubic metre is worth nothing on a container that cannot be put where you want it.
The mirror image is the 10ft, which is the dearest steel we sell by a wide margin — around $272 a cubic metre used, against roughly $39 for a 40ft — because it is not a shipping size and has to be cut down and rebuilt. Everywhere else that makes it a poor buy. Sydney is the one market where it is regularly the right one: a strata bay with a painted line around it, a terrace courtyard, a driveway that will not turn anything longer. Buy it for the access, and go in knowing it is an access decision rather than a price one.
The order to decide in is the same one that applies everywhere and it matters more here. Sort out what the site will physically take, then pick the size, then pick the grade. Doing it the other way round is how people end up with a container sitting in the wrong place, or on a truck that has to take it away again.
Sydney is the hardest city in the country to place a container in, and it is worth understanding why before you choose a size. The straightforward half is the west and south-west — Smithfield, Ingleburn, Erskine Park, the newer estates out past Leppington — where entries are wide, ground is level and a tilt-tray does the job without any fuss. The other half is the reason crane trucks are busier here than anywhere else. Terrace streets through the inner west and inner east have no off-street frontage at all, cars parked both sides, and clearway hours that decide when a truck may legally stop. North shore blocks are cut into sandstone with benched, curved drives built for a car rather than a rigid truck. Strata and unit blocks have a marked bay and not a spare metre in any direction. And the eastern beaches and the Botany sand run further back from the water than people expect — it looks perfectly firm and it does not necessarily carry four crane pads. A tilt-tray needs roughly twenty metres of straight run to slide a unit off; a crane truck lifts it over instead, and in a great many Sydney postcodes that is the only vehicle that works. Send photos of the street, the entry and the spot with your enquiry and we will settle the vehicle before anybody quotes a delivery.
Beyond the local detail, every drop needs the same three things — ground that carries the weight, a straight run to line up on, and clear air above the spot. Photographs answer all three faster than measurements do. Full checklist on the delivery page.
Used cargo-worthy 20ft from $2,200 ex GST, new single-trip 20ft from $3,300, used 40ft from $2,600 and 40ft high cube from $3,400. Those are ex-depot "from" prices and they are the same nationally. Delivery is quoted separately against your actual address, because in Sydney it is driven by which vehicle the site needs rather than by distance. Ring 1300 639 282 with the suburb and you will get both numbers together.
Because a tilt-tray has to reverse in, tip its bed and slide the container off, and it needs roughly twenty metres of straight run to do it. Terrace streets, benched sandstone drives, strata bays and small inner-suburb blocks rarely offer that. A crane truck lifts the unit over the obstacle instead. It costs more per job and it is frequently the only vehicle that will work, which is exactly why we would rather establish it from photographs than discover it with a truck already in your street.
Often, and the delivery is usually the easy part — the approval is not. Check with the strata manager or body corporate before you order whether a container is permitted, exactly where it may sit and for how long. A unit that has to be collected again a fortnight later is two truck movements nobody budgeted for. If it is a temporary need on shared ground, hire is generally the more sensible structure and we quote the delivery and the collection together at the start.
No. Sydney orders come off the Sydney basin depots — Port Botany and the western pool at Chullora, Yennora, Villawood and Erskine Park. It is the deepest container market in the country and there would be no sense in carting one down a highway to reach it. Our container prices are national and do not change with the postcode; only the delivery does, and here that is set by the access far more than by the kilometres.
The wait is rarely about finding the container — with that depth of stock it is about scheduling the right vehicle, and a crane truck job takes more organising than a tilt-tray drop onto a hardstand. Ring 1300 639 282 with the address and we will tell you what the schedule looks like; the date is confirmed when the order is placed. If you have a fixed date, say so at the enquiry and we will work backwards from it.
We deliver Australia-wide. These are simply the markets we can write about in detail — if your town is not listed, ring 1300 639 282 and we will price it the same way.
The published container price, plus a delivery figure for your actual address. Nothing held back for the phone call.
Or skip the form and ring — you will get the same two numbers faster.
Call 1300 639 282