An organization known as the National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA) publishes a list of freight class designations, codes, and subclasses for many commonly shipped commodities (https://classit.nmfta.org/). You must pay a subscription fee to view this list. For more information about freight classes for free on our freight classes pages.
The class determines the cost of the shipping. The lower the class, the lower the cost.
Some items, such as car transmissions, have a specific class no matter how heavy or big they are. This is called a fixed class. Items can be assigned a fixed class if the value and transportability very rarely change.