Storage containers in the Pine Belt — straight answers before you rent one.

What a 20ft or 40ft container holds, what a truck needs to set one down, what drives the cost, and the questions worth asking any yard before you agree to anything. Written for south Mississippi.

✓ 14 plain-English guides on sizes, access, ground, permits and cost✓ What actually moves the price — and what to ask a yard to quote separately✓ Ground level, lockable, wind and watertight — what those terms mean✓ Written for the Pine Belt, not scraped from a national site

Longleaf is not currently renting out or delivering containers. Nothing on this site is an offer, a quote or a price. If you tell us what you need we’ll be in touch about local options.

Tell us what you’re looking for

Longleaf is not currently renting or delivering containers, so nothing here is an offer, a quote or a booking. If you tell us what you need, we’ll be in touch about local options — that may mean passing your details to a container provider in your area who can actually service the request. See our privacy policy for exactly what happens to what you enter.

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Container size

How long do you need it?

Where would it go? (optional)

A rough location is enough. Whoever follows up will need to know how far out you are.

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No payment, no obligation, and no container is being held. We are not quoting a price and we are not scheduling a delivery.

What drives the cost of a container rental

There is no single right number, which is exactly why almost nobody publishes one. A container rental is really two charges — rent, billed monthly, and delivery and collection, billed once — and five things move them.

Size

A 40ft is roughly double the floor space of a 20ft but is generally not double the price, because the truck roll costs a yard about the same either way. The gap between the two is usually much smaller than the gap in capacity.

How long you keep it

Delivery and collection are charged once, not monthly. Spread over six months that charge is a rounding error; over a single month it can be the largest line on the bill. Containers reward longer terms, and short jobs are where a self-storage unit often wins.

Distance from the yard

Delivery is a truck and a driver making a round trip, so what you pay tracks how far you are from wherever the container is sitting today. Two identical containers can differ substantially on delivery alone. Always ask for delivery and collection quoted separately from rent.

Site access

A tilt-bed truck needs roughly 60 ft of straight clearance to set a 20ft container and about 100 ft for a 40ft, plus clear overhead. Sites that need a crane, a longer reach, or a second attempt after a failed drop cost more — and a failed delivery is usually billable.

Condition and grade

Used cargo-worthy units are the cheapest, one-trip and refurbished units cost more. For storage, wind- and water-tight is the specification that matters; paying up for cosmetics rarely changes what the box does.

More detail in what a storage container costs to rent.

What the market looks like

So you have something to measure a quote against, here is what other operators have publicly advertised or reported. These are market observations, not Longleaf prices. We do not set, quote or honour any of these figures, and a real quote for your address may land well outside them.

Independent regional yards have advertised 20ft containers from around $100–150 a month. Source: Public advertising, 2026 — SimpleBox listed $149/month; Meadow Leasing ran a long-running ad stating 20-foot containers start at $100 a month.
The large national fleet operators report an average monthly rental rate closer to $267. Source: WillScot investor reporting, average monthly rental rate, 2026.
Delivery and collection are quoted separately from rent almost everywhere, and are driven by round-trip distance rather than by container size. Source: Consistent across the operators we surveyed; no yard we found publishes a flat national delivery rate.

If you get a quote, ask for rent and delivery broken out separately, and ask what a failed delivery costs. Those two questions explain most of the gap between quotes.

What a container is good for

A steel container is a locked, dry room that shows up on a truck and sits wherever you put it. No monthly trip across town to a storage unit, no gate code, no sharing a hallway with strangers.

Renovations — move the house into the yard, work in an empty room.
Jobsites — tools and materials locked on site instead of loaded up every night.
Farm and equipment — feed, implements, parts, out of the weather.
Business overflow — inventory or records without leasing more building.
Storm season — somewhere dry that does not blow away.

20 ft160 sq ft · 20' L × 8' W × 8'6" HWhole-home contents, jobsite tools, seasonal inventory, storm stagingNeeds about 60 ft of straight clearance to set down

40 ft320 sq ft · 40' L × 8' W × 8'6" HLarge renovations, equipment, pallet storage, multi-room contentsNeeds about 100 ft of straight clearance to set down

Common questions

How much room does a delivery need?

A tilt-bed truck needs roughly 60 ft of straight clearance for a 20-footer and about 100 ft for a 40-footer, plus clear overhead — no low limbs or service drops across the approach. This is the thing that most often rules out a site, so measure before you call anyone.

What kind of ground does it need?

Gravel or concrete is ideal. Firm, level ground works. Soft sand, fresh fill or a soaked yard will bog a truck down — mention it up front, because a truck that cannot complete a drop is usually a billable trip.

Is it really watertight?

Cargo containers sold as wind and watertight have a lockable door and a dry interior. They are used, so expect surface rust and dings on the outside. They are not climate controlled, and condensation can occur inside any sealed steel box.

Do I need a permit?

It depends on your city, county and any HOA — and it is worth checking before you rent, not after. Some Pine Belt jurisdictions treat a long-term container on residential property differently from a short-term one during construction. See the permit guide.

Can Longleaf rent me a container?

No — not right now. We are not renting out or delivering containers, so we will not quote you a price or schedule a delivery. If you send us your details we will be in touch about local options, which may mean passing your information to a provider in your area who can service the request. What happens to your details is set out in our privacy policy.

Worth reading first

What does a storage container actually cost to rent? — The two charges that make up a container rental, and what moves each one.
20ft vs 40ft: which container do you need? — Capacity, cost and the delivery clearance that usually makes the decision for you.
How much room do you need for a container delivery? — What delivery day actually requires, and the five things that stop a drop.
Container on your property vs a storage unit across town — When an on-site container beats a rented unit — and the cases where it does not.
Do you need a permit for a storage container? — Private property, public street, HOA rules — and who to call before you book.
Can you put a storage container on grass? — What ground actually works, when to add blocking, and why the truck is the constraint.

All 24 guides →

Service areas

City-by-city pages for the places container questions come up most — each written around what people there actually use a container for, from jobsite storage to storm season.

Storage containers in Hattiesburg, MS · Storage containers in Petal, MS · Storage containers in Laurel, MS · Storage containers in Columbia, MS · Storage containers in Purvis, MS

Areas we write about

The Pine Belt and the counties around it. These pages cover what is specific to each town — access, ground and the local rules worth checking.

Hattiesburg · Petal · Laurel · Ellisville · Purvis · Sumrall · Columbia · Collins · Seminary · Wiggins · Lucedale · Richton · New Augusta · Lumberton