How We Quote Birch Plywood: Per Sheet, m2 and m3

3. říjen 2026

We quote birch plywood per sheet, against a pack count, direct from the Stiga RM mill in Kuldiga. Give us the grade, the thickness, the square metres and the destination and that is all we need.

Current prices sit on the product pages in the birch plywood range, in your currency, for your market. This page is the arithmetic behind them and the conditions we attach to them.

Why there is no price table on this page

Birch plywood has a different price in every market we serve. Freight from Latvia to Milan is not freight from Latvia to Manchester. Duty applies to some destinations and not others. We run separate lists in euro, pounds, dollars, Norwegian kroner, Swiss francs and Canadian and Australian dollars, and the spread across those lists reaches about a third.

A table here would be wrong for most of the people reading it, and a wrong number in a budget is worse than no number. The product pages serve the right market price on their own.

What does not change between markets is the structure: how grades, thicknesses and units relate. That comes from the geometry of the sheet and the shape of the mill's list, so you can reason with it wherever you buy.

Which unit to use

Per sheet is what you pay. It is the only unit that appears on an invoice and the only one that tells you what a delivery costs. Use it for ordering and cash flow.

Per square metre compares plywood against other sheet materials, or prices a wall or a floor area. It is useless for putting two plywood quotes side by side unless both state the same thickness. A thicker sheet costs more per square metre because it holds more wood, so the lower per m2 figure can be the dearer product.

Per cubic metre is how the trade prices the material itself. It is the one unit of the three that survives a comparison across thicknesses. Convert both quotes to m3 or you are comparing nothing.

The conversion maths

A standard sheet is 1250 x 2500 mm, so the area is 3.125 m2. From there:

Per m2 = sheet price divided by 3.125
Per m3 = sheet price divided by (3.125 x thickness in metres)

Which gives these divisors for the listed thicknesses:

Thickness	Volume per sheet	Divide sheet price by
15 mm	0.0469 m3	0.046875
18 mm	0.0563 m3	0.05625
21 mm	0.0656 m3	0.065625

So an 18 mm sheet price divided by 3.125 gives per m2, and the same price divided by 0.05625 gives per m3. The 1220 x 2440 mm format, available on request, has an area of 2.977 m2. That is 4.7% smaller and needs its own divisor.

Three relationships that hold in every market

Per cubic metre, thickness barely matters. Convert 15, 18 and 21 mm in one grade to cubic metres and the three figures land within a few per cent of each other. A 21 mm sheet costs more than a 15 mm sheet because it contains more wood, not because it is a dearer product. If a supplier charges you a higher rate per m3 on the thicker sheet, that is their margin and not the material.

The grade premium is about 15%. That is the whole spread from our cheapest sanded grade to our dearest. Drop a grade to save money and you save a fraction while giving up a usable face. The grades guide has the defect limits behind each one.

Film is close to free. F/F prices level with a comparable sanded grade at the same thickness, and the wire mesh face carries 1 to 4% over plain film. For formwork, trailer linings or anything that meets water, there is no reason to buy uncoated.

What we state in writing with every quotation

Four things decide whether a quotation is a specification or just a number. All four are on ours.

The core. Every ply birch, 1.5 mm, cross bonded. Not birch faces over a poplar or softwood core, which is the common substitution in this market and the hardest thing to spot on a pallet.

The thickness tolerance. 15 mm runs 14.3 to 15.3 mm. 18 mm runs 17.1 to 18.7 mm. 21 mm runs 20.0 to 21.5 mm. Wide, asymmetric, and printed because it is what the mill declares. The thickness guide covers what that does to a groove fit or a CNC programme.

The bonding class. EN 636-2S on the sanded grades, bonding class 2 under EN 314. EN 636-3S on F/F and F/W. Both on a Declaration of Performance, with CE to EN 13986 and UKCA.

The compliance stack. E1 to EN 717-1, CARB Phase 2 and EPA TSCA Title VI, without which a sheet cannot enter the US market. PEFC chain of custody as standard, FSC Mix on request with a surcharge. The certificates travel with the quotation.

Ask whoever else is quoting you for the same four, in writing.

The conditions on the number

Our listed prices are EXW Latvia at the half truck minimum, about 8 packs, roughly 18 m3 or 12.5 tonnes. Volumes above that price lower, so a container rate is not available on half a truck. Outside the ex works figure sit freight from Latvia, import duty and VAT where they apply, cutting and edging, packing beyond standard mill packing, and the FSC surcharge if you need FSC rather than PEFC. EXW, FCA, DAP and DDP produce very different landed costs from one ex mill price, so ask us for the delivered number rather than assuming the freight.

A worked example, in sheets and packs

Say you need 800 m2 of 18 mm with one visible face, so BB/CP.

800 m2 divided by 3.125 m2 per sheet is 256 sheets
18 mm packs hold 40 sheets, so 256 sheets is 6.4 packs
Mills ship whole packs, so round up to 7 packs, 280 sheets, 875 m2
7 packs is 15.75 m3 and about 10.7 tonnes

Those 10.7 tonnes sit under the half truck minimum of roughly 12.5 tonnes, so we would confirm this one at quotation rather than off the list. Eight packs clears the minimum and improves the rate per sheet. Work the quantity out this way first, then ask for a price against it.

Get a price

Grade, thickness, square metres, destination. You get a pack count, a price and the certificates.

Request a quote with your quantity and destination, or browse the birch plywood range.

Production runs up to 3 weeks depending on season, plus transit, and there is no stock, so a job starting next week is a merchant's job and we will say so.