When designing a lead acid battery, there are many factors to consider in order to obtain the best compromise of cost, performance, and ease of manufacturability. We use a modeling approach to study some of the key factors which affect the amount of active material which can be utilized during a low rate discharge. We investigate the effects of pellet size, pellet geometry, disconnected grid mesh borders, and inert paste additives. Furthermore, we look at how the internal path length resistance within a pellet is dependent on those features. Our findings correlate well with earlier works, and help to explain some of the previously observed phenomenon. It is observed that utilization is indeed affected by pellet size, but small grid mesh sizes on the order of ∼4 mm edge lengths are necessary in order to realize a significant benefit. Utilization is presented as a function of pellet size, aspect ratio of the pellets, and the loading level of the inert additives in the pellets up to ten percent by volume.