What Size Storage Does Your Business Actually Need?

Almost everybody rents one size too big. The ones who rent too small end up with two leases at two addresses, which is the worst version of this.

Square feet does not tell you anything, so here is every size by what kind of operation fits in it.

10 by 10 unit, 100 square feet

An online seller holding a few hundred small SKUs in totes on wire shelving. A photographer with backdrops, stands and cases. An inspector or notary with files and sample kits. $110 to $180 a month, and almost none of these facilities will let your vehicle sit on site, so this only works if the business travels in a car.

20 foot container, 150 square feet of floor and 1,170 cubic feet

The size for a one truck operation. A mobile detailer with a pressure washer, a water tank, chemicals and a canopy. A handyman with shelving down both walls and a cart down the middle. A seller buying by the pallet, four to six pallets on the floor with room to pick from them. A market or event vendor with tables, tents and crates.

$200 a month, and it is 7 feet 10 inches tall inside with steel walls you can strap a load against, so the height is usable in a way a storage unit's is not.

40 foot container, 300 square feet and 2,390 cubic feet

Pallet racking two levels down one side, roughly 16 pallet positions, with a 4 foot aisle a manual jack gets through. Or split it, front half as a bench and work area with a vise and a cord reel, back half racked for stock.

Party and event rental companies, flooring installers, sign shops, and anybody past about 12 pallets. $330.

800 square feet of fenced yard, $530

A work van and two trailers. Or a box truck and a 20 foot container. Or a food truck plus the prep trailer. This is the first size where the vehicles and the inventory finally live in the same place, which is the whole reason people mo

ve from a unit to a yard.

1,200 square feet, $730 to $750

Several vehicles, or a 40 foot container with a staging area you can walk around instead of squeezing past.

1,600 square feet, $930 to $950

Enough room to turn a loaded trailer inside your own space instead of blocking the drive aisle while you sort it out.

2,200 square feet, $1,050

Only at the Van Gordon yard in Wheat Ridge. A landscape or tree outfit running several trucks, or a rental company with a yard full of equipment.

5,656 square feet of warehouse with yard, $3,250

A roll up door, concrete floor, power, and ground outside it. The size you take when people start reporting to a shop instead of to a job site. More on that on the warehouse page.

How to size it in twenty minutes

Count pallets, not square feet. A standard pallet is 40 by 48 and most people stack to about 5 feet. Four of those fit in a 20 foot container with a picking aisle, or 10 to 12 if you rack it and do not need to walk between them.

Count the vehicles and trailers honestly, including the one you are planning to buy this year.

Add 30 percent to the inventory number, because inventory grows into whatever space exists.

Then ask whether anything has to stay dry. If yes you need a container or a bay, not bare ground. If it is equipment and vehicles, ground is fine and cheaper, and the vehicle side is covered in secure vehicle storage in Denver.

The thing that changes the math

Height. A storage unit is nominally 8 feet, but you are not loading to the top of an open room with nothing to brace against, so the last two feet go unused. A container is 7 feet 10 inches of steel wall you can strap to and fill all the way up. That is why 150 square feet of container holds about what 200 square feet of unit holds once it is loaded.

A 40 foot high cube adds another foot, which matters once you are stacking pallets two high or standing anything tall on end.

What to do with the number

Small, and nothing on wheels, rent a unit and move on. Bigger than that, or a vehicle involved, and the side by side is in self storage versus a container yard, with the full cost breakdown in what storage actually costs a small business.

We rent containers and ground at three Colorado yards, plus Houston and Laveen Village, Arizona. All month to month. What is open is on the availability page, or call 720-266-0400 and describe what you are storing.