Most companies compare office options by looking at the rent per square meter or square foot. That number is easy to find, but it leaves out most of what you will pay. The better question is how likely your headcount and office attendance are to change over the next two years.
Workplace software company Gable puts it this way: a traditional lease is a bet that your future demand is predictable, and flexible space is a hedge in case that bet is wrong. The rest of this post helps you decide which one fits your team.
What a traditional lease costs
Rent is only the first line. A traditional lease usually comes with the following costs on top:
- A fit-out, meaning the partitions, ceilings, air conditioning, cabling and furniture needed to make an empty floor usable.
- A deposit and the legal costs of signing.
- A restoration clause. Many leases require you to remove your fit-out and return the space to its original condition when you leave. This is often called reinstatement or dilapidations.
- A multi-year commitment, usually three years or more.
Fit-out is the cost people most often underestimate. Cushman & Wakefield's 2026 Americas fit-out guide puts the average at US$149 per square foot (March 2026), and the range between markets is wide. That figure covers the Americas only. Cushman & Wakefield also publishes an Asia Pacific edition on the same page, which is the one to check for your city.
Flexible space moves most of these costs into the monthly price. Furniture, internet, cleaning and reception are bundled, and you do not pay to build or restore anything.
Why paying for empty desks costs more than it looks
Say you lease 100 desks, and on a normal day 50 are in use. You are paying for 100 desks but getting value from 50. Your real cost per desk actually used is double the cost per desk you pay for.
Hybrid work makes this common. Your headcount might be 100, but your daily attendance is what the space has to serve.
A simple break-even check
A flex desk usually costs more per desk than a leased one. The question is whether that gap is bigger or smaller than the cost of your empty desks.
Here is the formula: Divide the all-in monthly cost of a leased desk by the monthly cost of a flex desk. The result is the share of your leased desks that must be in use on an average day for the two options to cost the same.
An example with made-up numbers: suppose a flex desk costs 1.5 times a leased desk, with the lease cost including fit-out, furniture and upkeep. The break-even is 1 ÷ 1.5, or about 67%. If fewer than two in three of your leased desks are used on a typical day, flex is cheaper. If more are used, the lease is cheaper.
This only works if you can buy flex capacity to match your daily need. It also depends on adding fit-out and upkeep to the lease cost, which is where most comparisons go wrong. Use your own quotes, not these numbers.
Which option fits which team
Team size and expected growth matter as much as price. These are starting points, not rules.
| Option | Team size it usually suits | Typical commitment | Upfront build cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coworking | 1 to 15 people | Daily or monthly | None |
| Serviced office | 5 to 50 people | 1 to 12 months | None, bundled |
| Managed office | 20 to 150 or more | 1 to 3 years | Low, built by the operator |
| Traditional lease | 100 or more | 3 years or more | High |
A serviced office is a furnished private office run by an operator. A managed office is a fitted floor operated for a single client. Both sit between coworking and a lease.
If your headcount could swing by more than a quarter in a year, stay at the flexible end of the table. If you have 100 or more people and your numbers barely move, a lease or a core headquarters is usually worth the commitment.
Four steps before you decide
- Measure real attendance. Use 60 to 90 days of badge swipes or desk bookings, not your org chart.
- Model three futures. Work out your space needs at 24 months under growth, flat headcount and contraction. The gap between those three numbers is your real estate risk.
- Split the portfolio. Put your core team in a lease or managed office, and use flexible space for overflow and for people in other cities.
- Compare like for like. Ask every provider for the all-in monthly price, term, notice period and what is excluded. Tools such as Gable and LiquidSpace can track usage once you are running a mix.
Where to compare options
Flexible space providers differ a lot in price, terms and locations. You can look at operators such as Regus, JustCo, Mindspace and Hubble directly, or use a marketplace like FlySpaces to compare several in one place. FlySpaces can also arrange viewings and compare terms for you.
Not ready to move this year? Run the attendance audit anyway. It will be useful whenever your lease comes up for renewal.
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