Office Space — 7 min read
The hidden costs of renting a traditional office
Rent is the line everyone budgets for. These are the lines that arrive afterwards and reshape the whole calculation.
Getting in
The deposit is the obvious one. Behind it sit fit-out, furniture, electrical and network cabling, air conditioning, signage, and often an advance payment before you have moved a single laptop in.
These are capital costs against a space you do not own, which is why the length of your stay matters so much to whether they make sense.
Staying in
Service charge, utility bills, backup power fuel and maintenance, internet contracts, cleaning staff or a service, security, pantry supplies, printer consumables, repairs and replacements. Individually small; collectively a second rent.
There is also a payroll cost that rarely appears in the spreadsheet: someone in your team spends real hours each week on the building instead of on the business.
Getting out
Ask, before signing, what condition the space must be returned in. Reinstating a fitted-out floor to its original state can be a significant cost, and it arrives exactly when you are also paying to set up somewhere new.
Ask how quickly the deposit comes back, and what can be deducted from it.
The comparison this makes possible
Once all three phases are on paper, a serviced office stops looking like a premium product and starts looking like an unbundling decision: you are paying one figure so that none of the above becomes your problem.
For some teams the lease still wins. The point is to make that choice with the full number in front of you.