When a business owner calls us about eight employees, the first question is almost always the same: what's the price per square foot? It's the question we're all taught to ask, and it's also the one that leads to the most bad real estate decisions.
Because an office doesn't cost what the lease says. And because eight employees almost never fill eight seats.
The calculation most owners make
The usual logic runs like this: eight people, so plan space for eight, multiply by a rate per square foot, compare two or three addresses, sign the best offer.
The reasoning is tidy. The problem is that it prices a container, while the real spending comes from everything you have to put inside it and from the share that will sit empty.
What a lease drags along with it
Net rent is a starting point, not a total. Before the first person sits down, you need leasehold improvements, furniture and its assembly, cabling and network equipment, a business internet contract, insurance, cleaning, supplies and a coffee machine.
Then come the costs that never end: operating expenses and taxes on top of base rent, electricity, repairs, replacing furniture, and the slice of your own week that goes to calls with the landlord, the building manager and the telecom provider.
That last item shows up on no budget, and it's often the most expensive one for a company of 2 to 50 employees. An owner's time is the scarcest resource a small business has.
Finally, there's the term. A commercial lease commits you for three, five or ten years to a footprint chosen for who you are today. If your team grows, you're cramped. If a contract ends, you pay for empty seats. Either way, flexibility is something you pay for up front.
The number that changes everything: actual attendance
Here is the exercise worth doing before you look at a single address. For two weeks, count how many people are physically present each day. Not your headcount: the number of chairs occupied at the same time.
In a team of eight working hybrid, that number rarely sits near eight. It sits closer to four, with peaks on Tuesday and Wednesday. That's the figure that should size your office, not your org chart.
A company that leases for eight and hosts four pays double what it needs, for the full term of the lease. It's the quietest and most durable expense a small business can inflict on itself.
What it looks like with memberships
The appeal of coworking in this calculation is simple: you pay for desks, not for a footprint, and you adjust the number when things change.
At Hedhofis, the list is deliberately short:
- Découverte, $199 per month: an unassigned seat in the open area, Monday to Friday.
- Essentiel, $299 per month: a reserved dedicated desk, accessible around the clock.
- Professionnel, $399 per month: the dedicated desk, plus credits toward meeting room bookings.
- Private office and corporate suite: an enclosed space in your name for the whole team, priced according to size and location.
Access to the entire network can be added to most plans for $100 per month. Business internet, coffee, mail reception and access to meeting rooms are included: there's no invoice arriving afterward.
For a hybrid team of eight, that often means four or five dedicated desks rather than eight, plus meeting rooms booked by the hour for the days when everyone comes in. You pay for use, not for peak capacity.
Three ways to get this calculation wrong
- Sizing on headcount instead of attendance. This is the most expensive mistake, and the most common.
- Forgetting the cost of entry. Improvements, furniture and network equipment are paid once, but they're paid before the first day of work.
- Not pricing your own time. If managing the space takes you three hours a month, those hours have a cost and they aren't in the lease.
Where to start
Run the attendance count for two weeks. Then add up the expense items above for the lease option and compare with the number of desks you actually need with us. The calculation takes an hour and it settles the question better than three site visits.
If you'd like to do it with us, get in touch. We'll tell you how many desks your team really needs, even when the answer is fewer than you expected. And you can come work a day for free to test it before deciding anything.
