Monetising Your Coworking Space Beyond Desks and Offices

Phil Ingram
Sep 16
3 min read

The core business of a coworking space is straightforward: you rent out desks, offices, and meeting rooms. This is your foundation, your bread and butter. But relying solely on this rental income is like a restaurant only selling main courses - you're leaving a huge amount of potential revenue on the table.

What happens when occupancy rates dip, or a shiny new competitor opens up down the road? The most resilient and profitable coworking spaces understand that their greatest asset isn't their square footage; it's the vibrant community of professionals within it.

The real goldmine is in monetising that community. Here are four proven ways to build new revenue streams that go far beyond the monthly rent.

1. Become a Hub for Events and Education

Your space is likely underutilised during evenings and weekends. This downtime is a prime opportunity for event revenue.

Host Your Own Paid Workshops: You have a captive audience of freelancers and small businesses hungry for knowledge. Partner with members or local experts to run paid workshops on topics like SEO for beginners, social media marketing, financial planning for freelancers, or even public speaking.
Rent Out Your Space: Market your common areas and larger meeting rooms to external companies for their own events—corporate off-sites, training days, product launches, or networking evenings. This monetises your space when your members have gone home.
Curate Wellness Programmes: Offer paid, on-site activities that help your members de-stress and connect. Think lunchtime yoga sessions, guided meditation classes, or professional headshot days with a local photographer.

2. Offer "Business-in-a-Box" Services

Your members are focused on growing their businesses, and they will happily pay for services that make their lives easier. Go beyond just providing a desk and Wi-Fi.

Virtual Office Packages: This is a classic for a reason. Offer a business mailing address and mail-handling service for a monthly fee. It’s a high-margin service that requires minimal effort and provides immense value for remote businesses and freelancers.
Premium Tech Add-Ons: Do you have a space that could be a small recording studio? Invest in a quality microphone and camera and rent it out by the hour as a "Podcast Booth." Offer enhanced printing, scanning, or even design services for a fee.
Concierge and Support: Partner with trusted local accountants, lawyers, or IT support firms. Offer their services to your members and arrange a referral fee. You become an indispensable resource, not just a landlord.

3. Create a Digital or Community Membership Tier

Not everyone who wants to be part of your community needs a physical desk every day. Create a lower-cost "Community Membership" to capture this audience. For a monthly fee, this tier could include:

Access to your online community platform (e.g., Slack or Discord).
Invitations to all member networking events.
A set number of day passes per month (e.g., two or four).
The ability to use your space as their business address.

This creates a recurring revenue stream from a wider audience and serves as a natural pipeline for future hot desk or private office members.

Putting It All Together: From Visitors to Members

You now have multiple streams of income: full-time tenants, day-pass users, digital members, and one-off event attendees. The challenge is, how do you manage this diverse group and continue to market your new services to them? An email list is a start, but it's not dynamic.

This is where a simple, app-free loyalty and membership platform like meed can be a game-changer. The goal is to capture every single person who interacts with your space and make them feel like a member, with access to unique perks and benefits.

With a platform like meed, you can instantly sign up an external event attendee or a day-pass user with a quick QR code scan. Suddenly, they are part of your ecosystem. You can then use the platform to:

Deliver targeted perks: Give your full-time office members a permanent voucher for free coffee, while offering community members 10% off their next workshop ticket.
Manage partner offers: Load a discount for the gym downstairs or the local sandwich shop directly into their digital wallet, adding tangible value to every tier of membership.
Drive engagement: Easily communicate new events or services to your entire community, ensuring your high-value offerings are always top-of-mind.

By thinking beyond the desk, you transform your coworking space from a simple utility into an indispensable community hub. This is how you monetise your coworking space. That’s not just how you generate more revenue—it’s how you build a brand that people want to be a part of for the long haul.