Coworking vs Private Office: Which is Best?

When considering the place where your company will be calling its home, it comes down to these two options:

Coworking vs Private Office

As we’ve discussed before in our Coworking vs Coffee Shop, coworking spaces are fantastic at providing your business with a professional image while also providing you with the space and tools you need to be productive. 

But when comparing coworking to the traditional office, the differences aren’t as obvious. 

Plug and play vs waiting

You can make use of a coworking space immediately after booking it and for as long as you need to. You can get anything from a multi-month membership to an hourly pass and book easily online. Everything you need from an office is already installed and ready for your workload to come through, from hi-speed internet to catered meeting rooms and presentation tools. 

With a private office you first need to scout a place out with a commercial real estate agent. This takes around 2 weeks to 2 months on average. Once you find your ideal location, you will sign a lease for typically 3 to 5 years. This process takes 2 to 8 weeks to complete. Then you will need to furnish the place, install all the cabling, and create the partitions you want. 

Flexibility

Coworking spaces are designed for maximum flexibility. So if you suddenly need to move to another continent for a business opportunity, there is nothing holding you back. At best your membership is transferable to the city you need to go to, and at worst you take a minimal loss for the days you won’t be able to use. 

Compare that to a private office and you see that in a similar situation your best case scenario is finding somebody to sublet your office space (which can be a hassle), and at worst you are stuck with a multi-year lease and have to pass on the opportunity or take a very heavy loss. 

Scalability

So your business is thriving and you need to add more people to your roster. With coworking spaces you would just need to get more memberships for your new employees whenever they start. The best part is that you can run a decentralized operation and have everybody use the coworking space that is most convenient for them. And if you need to have an all-hands meeting, you can easily book a large enough meeting room at a convenient space for everybody. 

With a private office you first need to consider where each new employee is going to work from. This at minimum means having to buy more desks, chairs, cables, etc. And if you are planning a significant expansion, this might mean going through the whole process of moving the office someplace bigger. Which means waiting for your current lease to end, finding a new space, signing a new lease, buying more furniture and installing all the cabling needed. 

In conclusion, coworking spaces are the better choice when compared with private offices. 

About Andrés Sanjose

Andrés Sanjose is a writer and editor based in Guatemala. He previously lived in Berlin for 10 years where he witnessed the birth and amazing evolution of the Virtual Office phenomenon, while working as a freelancer in the german capital. He is very interested in what the future holds for this exciting industry and loves to write about it.