Startup Coworking Spaces in Manhattan: What They Give You, and When to Leave

What a founder gets from coworking beyond desks

• Speed. Sign on a Monday and the team can be seated that week. No lease, no furniture order, no buildout.
• No commitment. A membership can usually be ended on short notice, which matters when headcount is a guess.
• Operations. Internet, cleaning, coffee, reception and the printer are someone else's job.
• Community. Other founders at the next table, events in the building, and the introductions that come from both. For a first-time founder this can be worth as much as the desks.

Some spaces run talks, office hours or structured programs. Ask what took place in the last three months and who came. A program earns a premium only if your team uses it.

The per-desk price, and what community adds to it

Manhattan coworking desks cost roughly $800 to $1,400 a month, everything included. Hot desks sit at the low end, dedicated desks higher, and a seat in a private room higher again. Ten desks therefore come to $8,000 to $14,000 a month, and twenty to $16,000 to $28,000.

Community and programming are part of what that price buys, whether or not they appear on the invoice. The honest test is use. If the team attends the events and has hired or raised through people it met there, the premium is doing work. If not, you are paying for it anyway.

The arithmetic behind leaving between 15 and 25 people

A coworking bill rises in a straight line: every hire adds another desk at the same price. A lease is charged on square feet, and a larger team uses fewer of them for each person, because rooms and the kitchen are shared among more people.

At 175 square feet per person, a team of 20 needs about 3,500 rentable square feet. Take the asking rent of any floor in the block on this page, multiply it by the square feet and divide by twelve. That monthly figure, plus electricity, is what to hold against $16,000 to $28,000 for the same 20 desks. Under about 15 people the desks usually win; past about 20 the floor usually does. When to leave coworking runs the numbers in full.

Signals besides cost: confidentiality, hiring, culture

• Confidentiality. Standups move into phone booths, whiteboards get wiped before visitors pass, or a competitor takes space on the same floor.
• Hiring. Senior candidates ask about the office. A shared floor can read as temporary to the people you most want to convince.
• Culture. The team has habits of its own and nowhere to put them: no wall for the roadmap, no room it can count on being empty, no say over who else is in the kitchen.

Two of these alongside a rising bill usually mean the move is due.

Leaving without signing a five-year lease

The step after coworking is rarely a long lease. Furnished and prebuilt floors are leased for one to three years and can be in use two to four weeks after signing, with no buildout to run. Subleases offer built space for whatever remains of another tenant's term. The shorter the term, the higher the rent per square foot. The furnished floors we list are on one page.

Keep the membership until the new floor is working, and for a week after. Write down what the operator handled for you, from reception to coffee, and give each item an owner. Flexible lease or coworking compares the two products directly. The floors on this page fit roughly 20 people, the size at which the comparison usually turns.