Every Storage Container in Palworld 1.0 (& Which Ones Are Worth Building)
Palworld gives you around thirty storage containers, most of them furniture with a slot count attached, and the differences between them are much larger than they look. The Metal Chest at Technology 13 holds 24 items for 5 Ingot and 10 Wood — more than twice a Wooden Chest for a fraction of the material — while the Large Container costs 100 Ingot for 40 slots that a later chest provides for 5 Refined Ingot. Here is the full list and the two builds that make the rest redundant.
The Full Container List
| Container | Tech | Slots | Materials |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wooden Chest | 2 | 10 | 15 Wood, 5 Stone |
| Wooden Barrel | 5 | 8 | 30 Wood, 5 Stone |
| Wooden Box | 5 | 10 | 30 Wood, 5 Stone |
| Wooden Shelf | 5 | 8 | 40 Wood, 2 Stone |
| Wooden Barrel Shelf | 5 | 15 | 70 Wood, 10 Stone |
| Wooden Wall Shelf | 5 | 2 | 20 Wood, 5 Stone |
| Antique Bookshelf | 10 | 10 | 40 Wood, 2 Nail |
| Antique Wardrobe | 10 | 20 | 70 Wood, 5 Nail |
| Antique Chest | 10 | 10 | 30 Wood, 10 Ingot |
| Antique Side Chest | 10 | 7 | 10 Wood, 3 Ingot |
| Iron Wall Shelf | 10 | 3 | 5 Wood, 10 Ingot |
| Metal Chest | 13 | 24 | 5 Ingot, 10 Wood |
| Cooler Box | 13 | 10 | 10 Ingot, 10 Stone, 2 Ice Organ |
| Antique Cabinet | 13 | 12 | 30 Wood, 10 Fiber |
| Antique Long Cabinet | 13 | 15 | 40 Wood, 10 Fiber |
| Large Antique Cabinet | 13 | 15 | 40 Wood, 10 Fiber, 3 Ingot |
| Antique Wall Cabinet | 13 | 3 | 20 Wood, 5 Stone, 3 Red Berries |
| Iron Shelf | 17 | 15 | 20 Ingot, 1 Nail |
| Long Iron Shelf | 17 | 15 | 20 Ingot, 2 Nail |
| Locker / Orange Locker | 17 | 20 | 30 Ingot, 3 Nail |
| Large Container | 23 | 40 | 100 Ingot |
| Small Container | 23 | 10 | 10 Ingot, 20 Wood |
| Cloth Covered Container | 23 | 10 | 10 Ingot, 15 Wood, 2 Cloth |
| Refrigerator | 38 | 25 | 50 Refined Ingot, 20 Polymer, 10 Cryogenic Coolant, 5 Circuit Board |
| Refined Metal Chest | 39 | 40 | 5 Refined Ingot, 10 Hardwood, 10 Nail |
| Guild Chest | 41 | 54 | 50 Refined Ingot, 100 Paldium Fragment, 10 Ancient Civilization Parts |
| Item Retrieval Machine | 49 | — | 100 Pal Metal Ingot, 30 Paldium Fragment, 4 Bio Battery |
| Japanese-Style Chest | 55 | — | 15 Hardwood, 5 Stone |
| Advanced Chest | 59 | 54 | 20 Hexolite, 20 Carbon Fiber, 2 Computer |
The Two That Matter
The Metal Chest at Technology 13 is the best storage in the game per unit of material, by a wide margin.
| Container | Tech | Slots | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wooden Chest | 2 | 10 | 15 Wood, 5 Stone |
| Metal Chest | 13 | 24 | 5 Ingot, 10 Wood |
Five Ingot. That is one ore smelted five times, for two and a half times the capacity of the wooden chest. Once you reach Technology 13 there is essentially no reason to build any wooden storage again, and a base full of Metal Chests costs almost nothing.
The Refined Metal Chest at Technology 39 is the second one to know, and it makes an earlier build look bad:
| Container | Tech | Slots | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Large Container | 23 | 40 | 100 Ingot |
| Refined Metal Chest | 39 | 40 | 5 Refined Ingot, 10 Hardwood, 10 Nail |
Identical capacity. One costs 100 Ingot; the other costs 5 Refined Ingot. Given that Refined Ingot is itself made from ore, the Large Container is only worth building in the window between Technology 23 and 39 — and even then, three Metal Chests give you 72 slots for 15 Ingot, which beats one Large Container at 40 slots for 100.
The honest advice: skip the Large Container entirely. Build Metal Chests until Technology 39, then Refined Metal Chests.
The Specialists
Four containers exist for reasons other than raw capacity:
Cooler Box (Technology 13) — 10 slots for 10 Ingot, 10 Stone and 2 Ice Organ. The Ice Organ is the tell: this is food preservation. Palworld's food carries a spoilage value, and cooked dishes are an investment — a Cake costs 2,000 work, and Pizza and Rushoar Bacon 'n' Eggs are what keep your base Pals sane at 23 and 21 SAN respectively. Losing them to spoilage is a real cost.
Refrigerator (Technology 38) — 25 slots, and a serious recipe: 50 Refined Ingot, 20 Polymer, 10 Cryogenic Coolant and 5 Circuit Board. The upgraded preservation option, and expensive enough that you build one rather than several.
Guild Chest (Technology 41) — 54 slots, the joint-largest in the game, at 50 Refined Ingot, 100 Paldium Fragment and 10 Ancient Civilization Parts. The name says what it is for: shared guild storage on a multiplayer server. If you play with a group, this is the container that matters, and the Ancient Civilization Parts requirement means an Alpha Pal circuit first.
Item Retrieval Machine (Technology 49) — 100 Pal Metal Ingot, 30 Paldium Fragment and 4 Bio Battery, with no slot count listed. Its cost puts it firmly in endgame territory alongside the Crude Oil Extractor tier.
Advanced Chest (Technology 59) — 54 slots for 20 Hexolite, 20 Carbon Fiber and 2 Computer. Matches the Guild Chest's capacity without the Paldium and Ancient Parts, but needs the Hexolite and Computer chains instead.
Storage Versus Carrying
Palworld has three different capacity limits and they are solved by three different things:
| Limit | What raises it |
|---|---|
| Base storage | Containers — the list above |
| Your inventory slots | Pouches — Small at Technology 27, Medium at 43 |
| Your carrying weight | The Weight stat (+50/point), Lunaris (+300~600), Cattiva (+100~200), the Burden Remedy |
Building more chests does nothing for your carrying capacity, and the Weight stat does nothing for your slots. Work out which one is actually stopping you before spending on a fix.
A note on the material chains behind all this. Storage is cheap in materials but those materials still need producing: Ingot comes from an Ore Mining Site (Technology 24) feeding a furnace; Nail is 1 Ingot → 5 Nails for 15 work at any workbench; Hardwood is a drop, notably from Mossanda at 1 – 3 with a 100% rate. A base that has automated ore has effectively unlimited storage.
And remember work priority. Construction sits at priority 3, above almost all production — so placing a large batch of containers pulls your whole workforce off the lines until it is done. Build storage in one session rather than a chest at a time.
Practical tips
- The Metal Chest (Tech 13) is the best value in the game — 24 slots for 5 Ingot and 10 Wood.
- Skip the Large Container. 100 Ingot for 40 slots, when three Metal Chests give 72 for 15.
- Refined Metal Chest (Tech 39) gives the same 40 slots for 5 Refined Ingot.
- Guild Chest (Tech 41) and Advanced Chest (Tech 59) tie for largest at 54 slots.
- Cooler Box and Refrigerator are for spoilage, not capacity — protect your cooked food.
- Storage, inventory slots and carrying weight are three separate limits.
- Batch your container building — Construction is work priority 3 and halts production.
Running your own Palworld 1.0 server
Storage matters most when a base produces continuously — an Ore Mining Site, a Coal Mine and a Ranch all filling chests while nobody is logged in is exactly the situation that fills 54 slots. On a dedicated Palworld 1.0 server that production runs around the clock, and the Guild Chest becomes genuinely useful because a group actually shares one base. Full crossplay keeps everyone on the same world, and one-click backups protect what those chests are holding.
Conclusion
Palworld has roughly thirty storage containers, and the ranking is not subtle. The Metal Chest at Technology 13 gives 24 slots for 5 Ingot and 10 Wood — the best material efficiency in the game, and enough to make wooden storage obsolete the moment you reach it. The Large Container at 100 Ingot for 40 slots should simply be skipped, since the Refined Metal Chest at Technology 39 matches it for 5 Refined Ingot, and three Metal Chests beat it before then. At the top, the Guild Chest (Tech 41) and Advanced Chest (Tech 59) tie at 54 slots, with the Guild Chest being the one that matters on a shared server. Keep the Cooler Box and Refrigerator for what they are actually for — spoilage, not capacity — and remember that base storage, inventory slots and carrying weight are three separate problems with three separate solutions.
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