Checkatrade’s storage cost guide (last updated April 2026) puts an average UK unit at about £95 a month for 50 square feet, the size that takes a one-bedroom flat, and about £190 a month for 100 square feet, which is about a single garage and the size it suggests for a three-bedroom house. London generally costs quite a bit more.
Two things distort those figures for most people. The first is that the price per square foot falls as the unit gets bigger, so the small unit that looks cheap is the most expensive space you can buy. The second is that the first bill is almost always higher than the quoted rate, because insurance, a padlock and sometimes an admin fee land on it.
Quick answer: Budget around £95 a month for a 50 square foot unit holding a one-bedroom flat, and around £190 for 100 square feet holding a three-bedroom house. London generally costs more. Introductory offers such as half price for the first eight weeks are common and revert automatically. These are ballpark market averages from Checkatrade’s storage cost guide (April 2026), not EcoGreen Movers quotes.
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Monthly cost by unit size
| Unit size | Average monthly cost | Average weekly cost | Roughly holds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 sq ft | £95 | £22 | Contents of a one-bedroom flat |
| 100 sq ft | £190 | £44 | A three-bedroom house, about a single garage |
| 150 sq ft | £285 | £66 | A four-bedroom house |
| 200 sq ft | £380 | £88 | A large four or five-bedroom house, about a double garage |
Those are Checkatrade’s ballpark UK averages, last updated April 2026. They are not EcoGreen Movers rates and should be treated as a starting point for comparison rather than a quote. Lockers and 25 square foot units cost less in total but usually more per square foot.
Why the industry’s own figure is not the price you pay
You will see self storage quoted at a rate per square foot. That number comes from the Self Storage Association UK Annual Industry Report, now in its 19th year and produced with Cushman and Wakefield, which put average revenue at £27.40 per square foot in its 2026 edition. Crucially that is operator revenue per square foot, an industry measure, not a customer price list.
This distinction matters because the per-square-foot figure gets repeated everywhere as though it were a menu price. It is not. It is what operators earn across their occupied space, averaged over promotional rates, long-stay discounts and premium products alike. Your quote will sit above or below it depending on the site, the floor, the size and the week you walk in.
Location matters too. Checkatrade notes that self storage in London generally costs quite a bit more than in the North of England, and suburban and out-of-town sites are often cheaper than city-centre ones, which matters a great deal if you will rarely visit. In London, storage collected from your address takes those journeys out of the sum.
Getting the size right is where the real saving sits rather than in shopping between providers. Our guide to storage unit sizes covers how to judge what you actually need before booking.
Why the first bill is bigger than the quote
The advertised rate is the space alone. Contents insurance is usually required for the whole period, a padlock is your responsibility, and some operators add a one-off admin fee. Insurance bought at the counter is charged on top of the unit rate, so ask what it costs before you sign, and admin fees are charged by some operators and not others.
- Insurance. Usually required for the whole period, though not necessarily theirs. Many family home contents policies already cover goods stored away from home, which can make the counter product unnecessary. Our guide to self storage insurance covers what to check.
- Padlock. Units are let empty of one. Bring your own or buy at reception.
- Admin or set-up fee. Charged by some operators, not others. Ask directly.
- Part-month billing. Moving in mid-month can mean a pro-rata charge plus a full month up front.
- Deposit. Some sites take a refundable deposit against the unit.
- Access tier. Advertised 24 hour access is sometimes a higher price band than the standard rate.
Ask for the total payable on day one rather than the monthly rate. That single question makes quotes comparable, and it is the number that catches people out when the direct debit is larger than expected.
Introductory offers and when they expire
Introductory offers such as half price for the first eight weeks are common; Checkatrade gives exactly that as a typical example. They revert to the full rate automatically, often without a prompt, which is why a storage arrangement that felt affordable in month two feels expensive in month four.
Diary the expiry date when you book. Eight weeks from a June move-in runs out in August, and if your storage need has extended you are then paying full rate on a unit you chose on discounted pricing.
Longer commitments are negotiable. Confirming you will need the unit for six months or more is frequently worth asking about a further discount, since occupancy is what the operator is actually selling. Asking whether they will match a nearby competitor’s price costs nothing.
Check the notice period to leave. It varies between operators, and it means walking out early does not necessarily stop the billing. Rolling monthly terms with short notice are worth insisting on.
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Practical ways to pay less
Upper-floor units are often cheaper than ground-floor ones for the same square footage, because ground floor is priced for convenient access. If you will visit rarely, that is a discount for nothing.
Packing properly is the other lever, and it is more powerful than most people expect. Storage is sold by floor area but the units are tall, so stacking to the ceiling rather than spreading across the floor can significantly reduce the space you need. Uniform boxes stack squarely; a mixed collection of sizes wastes volume in gaps.
Dismantle furniture rather than storing it assembled. A bed frame flat against a wall takes a fraction of the space it occupies standing, and the same is true of tables and shelving. Keep fixings in a labelled bag taped to the frame.
Declutter before measuring rather than after. Paying £95 a month to store furniture worth £150 is a loss inside two months, and it is a common one because the sorting feels like a job for later. Our guide to decluttering before a move covers where things actually go.
Finally, ask whether collection is included. Providers offering a free move-in van or a collection service remove a cost most people forget to count, and that can be worth more than a small difference in the weekly rate.
What the price includes, and what it does not
A standard self storage rate buys a locked unit inside a secured building with access during published hours. Monitored CCTV is close to universal: the Self Storage Association UK Annual Industry Report 2026 found 90.8 percent of stores use it. What the rate does not buy is heating, humidity control, help with loading, or any liability for contents beyond what your insurance covers.
Facilities vary more than the marketing suggests, and the differences are worth checking in person rather than online. A site with a loading bay, trolleys, a goods lift and wide corridors is a fundamentally different experience from one where you carry everything up a narrow staircase, and the cheaper rate is frequently attached to the harder site.
- Access hours. Standard is usually daytime, seven days. Genuine 24 hour access is sometimes a higher tier.
- Loading facilities. Trolleys, a covered bay and a lift make a large difference to how long a move-in takes.
- Drive-up units. Ground floor with vehicle access, more convenient and usually dearer.
- Climate control. A premium product, worth it for instruments, artwork and electronics, unnecessary for most household goods.
- Security. Individually alarmed units, CCTV and PIN entry are common. Ask what is actually monitored.
- Free move-in van. Offered by some operators and worth real money against a separate hire.
Visit before booking if you can. Photographs flatter storage sites, and the corridor width, the lift capacity and the distance from the loading bay to your unit are the things that decide whether a move-in takes two hours or five.
What a year actually costs
It is worth looking at the yearly figure, because storage is usually taken for a few weeks and kept for far longer, and the twelve-month figure changes how the decision looks.
| Unit size | Average annual cost | Equivalent to | Worth it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 sq ft | Around £1,155 | A modest second-hand car | A real gap between properties |
| 100 sq ft | Around £2,310 | Replacing most of a room’s contents | Renovation or an extended chain problem |
| 150 sq ft | Around £3,465 | Furnishing a small flat outright | Rarely, unless the contents are high value |
| 200 sq ft | Around £4,620 | Furnishing much of a house | Rarely, unless the contents are high value |
Two findings came out of this. First, at the larger sizes the annual cost approaches the replacement value of ordinary household furniture, which is the point at which storing becomes a decision about sentiment and quality rather than economics. Checkatrade puts a standard 100 square foot unit at roughly £2,310 a year, and most three-bedroom households could not replace their contents for that, so it holds. A 150 square foot unit is a harder case.
Second, storage taken for a defined short gap is cheap and storage taken open-endedly is not. The households that spend the most are those who never set an end date, because there is no natural prompt to review it. Set a date when you book and diary a review a month before it.
Annual figures are Checkatrade’s ballpark averages (April 2026), and Checkatrade notes that long-stay discounts often apply. They exclude insurance and any admin fee, and are not EcoGreen Movers quotes.
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Business and student storage priced differently
Two segments sit outside standard household pricing. Business customers are a substantial minority of the market: the Self Storage Association UK’s 2026 report puts domestic customers at 76 percent of use, leaving roughly a quarter for everyone else, and business VAT treatment and access patterns change the economics. Student storage runs on heavily discounted seasonal offers that do not apply the rest of the year.
For a business, the useful comparison is not against another storage site but against the alternatives: a larger unit at your premises, off-site archive storage priced per box, or simply disposing of records that no longer need keeping. Archive storage can be cheaper per box than a self storage unit when the contents are purely paper and rarely accessed.
Businesses should also check whether the quoted rate includes VAT, since household and commercial customers are frequently shown different figures, and whether the site permits the kind of access a business needs. Some prohibit stock movements or running any activity from the unit.
Student pricing is a seasonal product built around summer vacation dates, with by-the-box collection services competing directly against units. The arithmetic there works differently because item count rather than floor area drives the price, and it is covered separately in our guide to student self storage.
If you are storing office contents during a relocation, the cost sits inside a larger budget where storage is rarely the biggest line. Our breakdown of office relocation costs sets out where it fits.
When storage is the wrong answer
If your dates line up, do not use storage at all. Every additional handling stage adds cost and risk, and paying to store items for a fortnight because it feels tidier is money for nothing. Storage exists to solve a genuine gap.
Storage companies will not put it that way, so here it is plainly. The comparison worth running is against the alternatives rather than between providers.
A short overlap between properties is often cheaper to solve by paying a few extra days of rent or by negotiating a delayed completion than by moving everything into a unit and out again. Our comparison of self-storage against moving straight in runs those numbers.
Storage is also the wrong answer for anything you are storing because you cannot face deciding about it. That is a decluttering problem wearing a storage costume, and it is the single most expensive version of this because it has no end date by design.
And be careful with damp-sensitive contents. Cardboard boxes in an unheated unit soften over months, and upholstered furniture stored against a cold external wall can develop problems. Rigid boxes, pallets or battens under furniture, and a climate-controlled unit for anything genuinely sensitive are the answers, though the last carries a premium.
One last point on timing. Storage demand and pricing follow the moving market, so the same unit can be dearer in a busy summer week than in November, and availability at popular sites tightens around month ends when tenancies turn over. Booking a fortnight ahead rather than on the day gives you the choice of size and floor, which is where the saving sits.
And take an inventory as you load, photographing each section of the unit once it is full. It costs ten minutes, it makes any insurance claim straightforward, and it saves unpacking half the unit to find one box six months later.
How EcoGreen Movers handles storage
Keeping the move and the storage with one supplier removes a handling stage and a set of paperwork. EcoGreen Movers uses reusable crates that stack squarely and do not collapse in a damp unit over several months, which is exactly where cardboard struggles.
We offer storage and packing alongside residential moves, covering Edinburgh, Manchester and London. Furniture dismantling is one of the services on our quote form, and taking beds and tables apart is also one of the easiest ways to need a smaller unit. Get in touch for a quote covering both legs.
Frequently asked questions
How much for a three-bedroom house?
Around 100 square feet, which Checkatrade’s April 2026 averages put at about £190 a month or about £2,310 a year, with London generally costing more. That is about the size of a single domestic garage. These are ballpark market averages, not EcoGreen Movers quotes.
Is insurance compulsory?
Facilities usually require contents cover for the whole period, though not necessarily theirs. Many family home contents policies already extend to goods stored away from home, so check yours before buying the product sold at the counter, which is charged on top of the unit rate.
Why is a small unit so expensive per foot?
Because the fixed costs of letting any unit, the paperwork, access control and site overhead, are spread across less space. The cost per square foot typically falls as units get larger, which is why one 100 square foot unit usually beats two 50s.
Is the per square foot figure the price I pay?
No. The widely quoted rate comes from the Self Storage Association UK Annual Industry Report and measures average operator revenue per square foot, which was £27.40 in the 2026 edition. It is an industry measure, not a price list. Use it for context, not for budgeting.
Can I get a discount?
Often. Introductory offers such as half price for the first eight weeks are common. Committing to six months or more, taking an upper-floor unit, or asking whether they will match a nearby competitor’s price are all worth trying.
What notice is needed to leave?
It varies between operators, so check before booking, because clearing the unit early does not automatically stop the charge. Rolling monthly terms with short notice and no exit penalty are worth insisting on.
In summary: size it right, then ask for day one total
Budget around £95 a month for a one-bedroom flat’s contents and around £190 for a three-bedroom house, more in London. Ask for the total payable on day one rather than the headline rate, and diary the date any introductory discount expires.
Then set an end date. Storage taken for a defined gap is a sensible cost; storage taken open-endedly quietly becomes one of the larger bills attached to a move.
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