Find Shared Office Space While You Grow, and Know When to Stop Sharing
Shared office space is a desk or a lockable room on a floor an operator runs, paid per desk each month with furniture, internet and cleaning bundled in. It serves a small team well. For a team of 15 to 30 that is still hiring, the per-desk bill usually passes what a private floor costs somewhere between 15 and 20 people. Nomad does not operate shared space. We price the desks you have against private floors sized for the team you are becoming, and when the numbers turn we find and negotiate that floor. The floors below fit about 25 people.
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Price desks against a floorUpdated 2026-10-03 · Nomad Group
What a growing team is buying when it shares a floor
Shared space comes in three forms: a hot desk you claim each morning, a dedicated desk that stays yours, and a private room for the team on a floor other companies also use. In all three the operator runs the floor, and what your company holds is a membership, not a lease. Reception, the kitchen, the meeting rooms and the phone booths belong to everyone on the floor.
What you are paying for is the ability to change your mind, which is worth real money while headcount is a guess.
The bill at 15, 20 and 25 desks, against a private floor
Manhattan coworking is priced at roughly $800 to $1,400 for each desk, each month, and the rate does not fall as you add people.
- 15 desks: $12,000 to $21,000 a month.
- 20 desks: $16,000 to $28,000 a month.
- 25 desks: $20,000 to $35,000 a month.
A private floor is priced by area. At 175 rentable square feet per person, 25 people need about 4,375 square feet. Say a floor that size asks $60 a square foot a year: the rent is about $21,900 a month before electricity, cleaning and internet, which the desk price already includes. The block on this page shows what floors of this size ask now, so run the sum on those. Flexible lease or coworking sets both columns out in full.
Privacy at 25 people: rooms to meet in, room to concentrate
Privacy is where a growing team feels shared space first. Meeting rooms are booked by the hour against every other company on the floor, calls with candidates happen in a phone booth, and visitors arrive through a reception that belongs to someone else.
On a floor of your own, the planning figure of 175 square feet already counts the meeting rooms, the phone booths and the pantry, and they are yours all day.
What Nomad does for a team that is still in shared space
Nomad Property Group is a licensed New York real estate broker. We do not run shared offices or sell memberships. The work has two parts.
- The comparison. Send your headcount now, the headcount your plan shows in 18 months, your monthly invoice and the date that matters. We price private floors at that size against what you pay, with the costs a lease adds. A first shortlist can be ready within 24 hours.
- The next floor. If desks still win, we say so, and you check again after the next round of hiring. When a floor wins, you tour a handful of them in one afternoon and we carry the negotiation from the first proposal through the signed lease. In most transactions the landlord pays the broker fee, and on your search, we work for you.
When to leave coworking lists the signals that the comparison is due.
Floors that fit a team of 25
Live from our listings · 6 of the 24, smallest firstA team of 25 plans on about 4,375 square feet at 175 a person. 24 floors on our book sit in the range that fits, 4,375 to 7,875 square feet, asking $44 to $135 per square foot per year.
- Floors
- 24
- Sizes
- 4,900-7,500 sq ft
- Asking rent
- $44-$135 / sq ft
- 2 Penn Plaza, Partial 17th Floor 5,070 sq ft $135/sq ft Penn Plaza about 29 people
- 825 Third Avenue, Partial 29th Floor 5,230 sq ft $89/sq ft Grand Central about 30 people
- 104-110 Greene Street, Partial 11th Floor 5,375 sq ft $110/sq ft SoHo about 31 people
- 520 Broadway, Entire 10th Floor 5,539 sq ft $125/sq ft SoHo about 32 people
- 60 East 42nd Street, Partial 13th Floor 5,772 sq ft $72/sq ft Grand Central about 33 people
- 213 West 35th Street, 11th Floor 6,100 sq ft $52/sq ft Penn Plaza about 35 people
The full guide
This page is the short answer. The long one, with the numbers worked through, is here:
Related topics
- How to Find Shared Office Space for a Startup: Five Steps
- Shared Office Space in Union Square, and a Floor of Your Own Nearby
- Shared Private Office Space: Three Ways to Get a Door That Closes
- Dedicated Flexible Office Space in Manhattan: Where the Market Stands Now
At what team size does sharing an office stop being the cheaper choice?
Usually somewhere between 15 and 20 people. Below about 15, desks tend to cost less in total once the furniture, internet, cleaning and deposit a lease requires are counted. Above about 20 the floor tends to win per head, since rent follows area while a membership follows headcount.
Can a team of 25 stay in shared office space?
It can, if the operator has a large enough suite in one place. Expect $20,000 to $35,000 a month at Manhattan desk prices, with meeting rooms shared among every company on the floor. Stay if you cannot forecast headcount a year out. If you can, price a floor.
Does Nomad rent out shared desks or coworking memberships?
No. Nomad does not operate coworking. We compare your shared space with private floors and place your team on a floor when that makes sense. For a team that wants its own door without a long commitment, Flex by Nomad offers furnished private floors on flexible terms.
How fast can we be working in each option?
A shared desk can be yours in days, which is the strongest argument for it. On a furnished or pre-built private floor, count on two to four weeks between signing and moving in. Space that needs a custom buildout adds 10 to 16 weeks of construction. The search-to-keys timeline shows where the weeks go.
Talk to a broker
Want this answered for your team?
Tell us three things: team size, timing, budget. A first shortlist can be ready within 24 hours, with the asking rent on every floor that publishes one.
- Within the houra broker reaches out during business hours, no automated triage
- On your sidewe work for you on your search, and the landlord usually pays our fee
- Open pricingasking rent published for 46 of 49 floors, size and address for all
- 300+ officesdelivered in New York, 2M+ sq ft leased
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