Coworking or Your Own Office - What Is Better for a Small Business?

This question typically arises at the same time: the company is growing, working from home is no longer effective, yet no one wants to commit to long-term contracts or office logistics. The choice is not about what is "cheaper," but about what interferes least with work and does not block growth for the next six months. This guide will help you make a practical decision - by examining needs, day-to-day differences, costs, and common pitfalls in a straightforward, no-nonsense style.

Quick Answer:

• Coworking wins when you want to start immediately, need flexibility, and prefer minimal operational overhead on the company's side.

• Your own office makes sense when you need full control, a fixed layout, and predictable privacy every day.

• The biggest pitfall is comparing "price per square metre/desk" in isolation, rather than factoring in the cost of time, organisation, and the risk of change.

• If you do not know how many people will realistically work from the office in a typical week, it is safer to start with a flexible model and scale up later.

• For HR, the decision should support commuting, onboarding, and working comfort - not just a "nice address."

Where to start?

First, set aside the emotions ("our own office sounds more grown-up" / "coworking is more modern") and examine how you actually work. In a small company, the gap between declarations and reality makes the biggest difference: you assume everyone will come in four days a week, but it ends up being one shared day with the rest working from home. At that point, your own office becomes a cost, and coworking becomes a tool.

Needs Checklist:

• How many people will realistically be in the office during a typical week (not "eventually," but "in practice")?

• Are the dominant tasks ones requiring silence and focus, or rather conversations, calls, and meetings?

• How often do you meet clients or candidates in person, and do you need a meeting room for that?

• Does the team follow a fixed work rhythm, or a rotational/hybrid one (different days, different needs)?

• Do you need full control over the space (branding, layout, rules), or is it enough that it "just works"?

• How likely are changes within the next 3–6 months (growth, downsizing, a new project, reorganisation)?

At this stage, it is also worth running a simple decision test: if you cannot answer two or three of the questions above without guessing, that is a sign that a model allowing you to test assumptions is better than committing to a rigid arrangement.

Key practical differences between coworking and your own office

In the "coworking vs own office" debate, the biggest difference is not about square metres - it is about who carries the organisational burden. In a coworking space, you walk into a ready-made work environment, and the tasks that typically consume time (facility management, maintenance, common areas) are handled by the operator. Your own office gives you full control, but with it come decisions that a small company usually does not want to make every week: vendors, repairs, utilities, cleaning, room availability, access logistics - sometimes even "who orders the coffee and paper."

Below is a quick comparison to help you see the differences without ideology:

If the team is growing and you do not want to burn budget on empty desks, coworking often provides better flexibility. If you work with sensitive data, have many confidential conversations, or need a permanent setup for a specific process (e.g. fixed workstations, specialist equipment), your own office may win - provided you are prepared to bear the cost of set-up and maintenance.

In practice, small companies often make one mistake: they take their own office "just in case," because "we will grow soon," and then spend six months paying for space that sits idle. The reverse also happens: they choose coworking without checking acoustics and call requirements, only to discover after a month that half the day is spent on calls with no workable solution for privacy. Both situations are avoidable if you return to the checklist and calculate actual office usage.

If you want to see how coworking works with a zone-based layout (quiet work, conversations, meetings) and what an "office without office logistics" looks like, get in touch with our consultants.

Coworking vs own office - costs

When comparing coworking with your own office, costs are the most deceptive element because they are easy to reduce to a single number. Your own office often has a lower cost "on paper" per square metre, but hidden costs emerge: set-up (time, fit-out, service agreements), maintenance (utilities, servicing, cleaning, minor repairs), plus the cost of your time - or the time of the people managing it all. Coworking typically bundles a large share of these items into a package and delivers predictability, but you pay for convenience, location, and flexibility.

The most practical way to compare costs is this: do not ask "how much does it cost per month?" but rather "what am I paying for when the office sits empty?" If you know the team will be in the office infrequently and on a rotating basis, the fixed cost of your own office can be hard to justify. If you know the office will be full every day and the workflow demands a permanent configuration, your own space may prove more defensible over time - but only after accounting for set-up and ongoing maintenance costs.

For a small company, a sensible strategy is often to test before entering into a long commitment. If you want to start in a way that lets you verify actual occupancy and team needs (how many days, how many people, how many meetings), a good starting point is The Shire's flexible membership - it minimises the risk of buying a solution based on assumptions rather than practice.

Common cost mistakes are repetitive: a company takes its own office and then rents meeting rooms externally anyway because it did not anticipate meetings; or it chooses coworking without planning usage rules, so the time spent "organising the day" eats into the cost savings. In both cases, the winning approach is simple: calculate how many hours per week are spent on meetings, calls, and focused work - and only then choose a solution.

Pros and cons of both solutions

Coworking has its greatest advantage when a small company needs to get into a working rhythm quickly and does not want the office to become an operational project. You gain peace of mind because all the "around-the-office" issues fall away, and it is easier to match the number of desks to actual occupancy. The downside can be less control and a changeable environment - if you choose a model that is too flexible for your needs, or if your work demands constant quiet and privacy. In that case, you need to consciously select the right zones, usage patterns, and team rules.

Your own office offers the comfort of predictability: you know what the day looks like, you set your own rules, your own layout, your own privacy. This can be crucial for teams that frequently discuss sensitive matters or need a permanent workstation configuration. The downside is cost and organisational burden: even if you like "having everything under your own roof," in a small company it quickly becomes apparent that the office demands attention - and you would rather direct that attention towards clients and product. That is why, in practice, the choice comes down to a single question: does the lack of full control bother you more, or does the constant need to manage the space bother you more?

If you are still building a workplace culture and do not yet know how often the team will come in, coworking is a safer starting point. If you have a stable, daily on-site work rhythm and know the office will be occupied most of the time, your own space starts to make more sense - provided you have the resources to set it up and maintain it properly.

Make the decision with The Shire

In a small company, the choice between coworking and your own office is a decision about where you want to invest your energy: in the business or in the office. Coworking wins when you need flexibility, a fast start, and want to minimise office administration. Your own office wins when the priority is full control, consistency, and privacy - and you are ready to handle that model organisationally.

If you want to see where you can work in a The Shire coworking space and what the locations look like in different cities, take a look: coworking in Kraków, coworking in Wrocław, and coworking in Warsaw.