The application pertains to detecting the fill level of a container for transporting and/or storing objects. This is achieved by determining an estimate of the number of objects in the container with the aid of a value of the container volume occupied by the objects or the already emptied container volume, on the basis of an average object volume of one or of a predetermined number of the objects, as long as the container bottom is covered by objects situated in the container. When a predetermined portion of the container bottom is visible, the objects in the container are counted, by identifying the individual objects on the container bottom. In addition, a container that is particularly suitable for the proposed methods and a system with a plurality of such containers are proposed.