Cheap and San Francisco are not words that usually sit together, but the numbers in our own listing say otherwise. Of the 97 private offices we carry in the city, 29 are under 500 ft², 49 are under 1,000 ft², 19 are priced below $1,000 a month and 32 below $2,000.
The cheapest rooms in the listing
The floor of the market is $130 a month. That buys a 43 ft² furnished room at 75 Broadway or at 1390 Market Street, or an 86 ft² room at 166 Geary Street just off Union Square — the last of which works out at $1.51 per ft², the lowest rate anywhere in our San Francisco catalogue. The next rungs are $390 for 129 ft², $431 for 161 ft² at 611 Gateway Boulevard, $560 for 215 ft² at 580 California Street and 50 California Street, $604 for 226 ft² at Levi's Plaza, and $680 for 108 ft² at 315 Montgomery Street.
Where the low rates per foot hide
Headline cheapness and value per foot are different things. Sorted by rate, the bargains are 166 Geary Street at $1.51 to $2.43, 580 California Street at $1.94 on its larger plates, and the $2.32 tier shared by 50 California Street, 75 Broadway, 1390 Market Street and 95 Third Street. Against a city-wide typical rate of $2.67, taking a 2,500 ft² suite at $2.32 instead of $3.10 saves close to $23,000 a year for the same amount of space.
Small does not have to mean serviced
Rooms under 500 ft² in this market come furnished and bundled, which is why their rate per foot looks high — $3.02 at 75 Broadway and 1390 Market Street, $5.15 at 505 Montgomery Street and 201 Mission. You are paying for cabling, furniture, cleaning and reception rather than for the real estate. If your budget is under $700 a month, that is simply the product on offer, and it is a good one: nothing to buy, nothing to install, and a term measured in months rather than years.
Month-to-month options
Short commitments live at the same end of the range. A coworking desk is $385 a month in all 11 buildings, a business address is $110 and a virtual office plan starts at $100. If you need an address more than you need a chair, the $110 plan beats every physical option in the listing.
How to shop the bottom of the market
Filter the San Francisco listing by price ascending and read the area column, not just the number. Two rooms at $130 differ by a factor of two in size, and two 161 ft² rooms differ by a factor of nearly two in price depending on which tower they sit in. The spread is where the saving is.