Can You Rent Office Space by the Hour? [What to Know]

Working as an entrepreneur or a small business owner is not an easy feat. It typically translates into long hours, a lot of stress, and few days off. When it comes to where you and your team should work—and meet—there are numerous options. 

For some, a permanent office is desired. But they are expensive and you lack flexibility when it comes to expanding and contracting as well as configuring the space. Permanent offices also come with long-term leases that are very expensive to break. And as cash is often tight for an entrepreneur or small business, many cannot afford office address that is commensurate with what their business needs.

Advantages of Rented Office Space

Many are discovering that they don’t need a permanent office. Virtual office space is a much better option. It is cheaper than permanent office space, and you only need to pay for it when you need it. Plus, as working from one fixed location doesn’t make sense for many entrepreneurs and businesses, virtual offices give you the ability to use an office space in close proximity to a client meeting that is happening later in the day or one that is around the corner from one of your kid’s athletic competitions or planned family events. You or your employees no longer need to spend valuable time driving across town to sit in a fixed workspace to drive across town. Rather, you simply need to locate a virtual office around the corner from your home residence from which to work.

Virtual offices are a great choice for professionals when they are traveling. Hotel rooms often are not the right place from which to work, and local coffee shops are noisy, lack privacy, have intermittent internet connectivity, and don’t come with the business tools (e.g., monitors, fax machines, photocopiers, etc.) you often need when working. Virtual offices remove those distractions and come with monitors, highly reliable high-speed internet, business services and tools, and more. 

Virtual offices are used not only by entrepreneurs and small businesses today, but they are gaining rapid adoption by corporations. 14% of corporate workers indicate they use coworking space regularly. Workers like the flexibility coworking gives them, and businesses realize significant benefits at the same time.

Different Rented Office Options

There are different options when it comes to virtual offices. Coworking space is seen as a rapidly growing sector with more locations available to professionals to use. A recent report by Research and Markets projects a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12% through 2025. Before the pandemic, research pegs the number of coworking spaces in the U.S. at 23,548. This number will nearly double to 41,975 in 2024. These will be used by five million professionals. 

Coworking space is more than just allowing professionals and businesses to share infrastructure and cost. It also involves belonging to a community that is accessible and sustainable. Coworking space through providers such as Davinci Meeting Rooms can be booked by the hour, half day, day, week, or even longer. This on-demand model enables entrepreneurs and businesses to pay for workspace only when they need it. And with myriad locations available in most metropolitan areas, they have plenty of options from which to choose. 

Day offices are also a popular option. Like coworking space, day offices also can be booked by the hour, half day, day, week, and more. Day offices are private office spaces that come fully equipped with high-speed internet, a monitor, telecommunications equipment, a lobby greeter, and more. Using services like Davinci Meeting Rooms, entrepreneurs and businesses can find and pinpoint day offices that meet their needs best—location of the day office, available services that come with the day office (e.g., lobby greet, fax and photocopy machines, etc.), and images of the actual office.  

Virtual meeting rooms are also available for entrepreneurs and businesses to rent by the hour, half day, day, week, or longer. Like coworking space and day offices, virtual meeting rooms can be vetted beforehand based on location, size and configuration of the room, available collaboration and presentation tools, and options around administrative support, business services, and catering services. These are immensely better than coffee shops and hotel conference rooms in terms of cost (half the cost of a hotel conference room), privacy and confidentiality, and more. 

How to Rent Office Space by the Hour

Following is a quick checklist of the process an entrepreneur or business should following when looking for, booking, and renting an office space by the hour:

1. Scale and Inventory of Rented Office Space Provider

The first thing one needs to do is to find a rented office space provider that has an extensive inventory of office space—in terms of coworking space, day offices, and meeting space. Local or regional providers lack the scale most entrepreneurs and businesses need. Davinci Meeting Rooms, for example, has over 5,500 virtual office locations and 20,000 meeting spaces around the world in its inventory. 

2. Location of the Rented Office Space

While the actual address of a rented office space may not matter in every instance, it does in many cases. For meetings with prospects or new clients, first impressions matter. Professional meeting space needs to be in a location that garners respect and bolsters your brand. 

3. Vet Your Rented Office

You want to be able to review and vet your rented office space before booking it. Rented office space providers should include photos and images and a list of services that come with the rented office (e.g., lobby greeter, fax and photocopy machines, administrative support, etc.). 

4. Ease of Booking

The last thing a busy professional needs is a cumbersome booking process when it comes to reserving rented office space. Look for a rented office space provider that offers multiple engagement channels and means to book the office space—website, mobile app, live web chat, text, and phone. In the event you run into any questions or problems reserving the room, you want an integrated omnichannel experience where you don’t need to recount everything you just entered into the web application or typed into the web chat window. 

5. Flexible Booking Options

You don’t always know how long you need a rented office space. Thus, you want the ability to move from booking for an hour to multiple hours or even for a week or two without starting a new search from scratch again. The rented office provider needs to display what booking options exist for the location of interest so that you can gauge if it is the right spot for you.

6. Leverage a Virtual Office Address at the Same Time

Davinci Virtual combines virtual office addresses with virtual office space for businesses without a permanent office location. Thus, you can secure a virtual office address for your business in the same location you rent office space. In addition, for entrepreneurs or businesses that travel and/or expand into new locations, the combination of virtual office addresses and rented office space provides significant convenience. 

7. Check Out the Online Reviews

Consumers rely on online reviews when vetting any number of products and services—restaurants, hotels, theme parks, mobile phones and devices, and many others. Most of us do the same when evaluating different B2B services and products and rented office space providers should be no different. Trust Pilot is a great place to start. But other options exist such as Consumer Affairs and Clutch.co. If the provider has mobile apps, take a look at their reviews on Google Play and Apple Store. 

Hybrid Work Models and Rented Office Space

The global economy was turned upside down as a result of the pandemic, and the traditional underpinnings of where, how, and when we work were deconstructed. Most organizations do not plan to return to a pre-pandemic workplace where most, if not all, of their workers spend numerous hours each week driving to work and spending 8 to 10 hours in a fixed workspace. 

Hybrid workspace arrangements where workers spend only part of their time working from a fixed office location are being embraced by businesses and workers alike. For example, according to studies conducted by Accenture, 83% of workers prefer hybrid work models over traditional fixed workspace arrangements. Nearly two-thirds of high-growth companies have already adopted a productivity anywhere workforce model. Rented office space is going to play an important role in this new hybrid work model, and knowing how to find, vet, book, and use coworking space, day offices, and rented meeting rooms is a requisite.

About Patrick Spencer

Patrick Spencer (Ph.D.) is the President and Founder of TIRO Communications that helps companies develop, build, and manage content, customer, advocacy, and demand-gen programs. Included in its offerings is TIRO Cognition Insights, a data analytics tool that enables B2C and B2B businesses to pinpoint what their customers and competitors’ customers are saying and to identify corresponding actionable product, services, competitive, sales, and marketing intelligence. LinkedIn Profile: LinkedIn Website: www.tirocommunications.com