Many coworking spaces have private rooms that sit empty for large parts of the week. There is a straightforward way to fill those hours: rent the rooms by the hour to therapists, counselors, coaches, and other practitioners. These professionals do not want a lease. They want a clean, quiet room for a few hours a week, and they are willing to pay for it.
This article explains how to offer hourly room rental, how to make one room work for several uses, and why clear pricing gets rooms booked faster.
Who rents rooms by the hour?
To understand the demand, it helps to look at a marketplace where this already happens. Rent A Therapy Room is a UK site where therapists, counselors, beauticians and wellness practitioners let and find rooms. The platform currently lists around 200 live rooms across the UK. Therapy rooms are the largest group (141 listings), followed by massage rooms (90), beauty rooms (66), and salons (34).
Two details stand out for coworking operators. First, many rooms appear in more than one category, because practitioners want a space that works as a treatment room in the morning and a quiet work room in the afternoon. Second, the people renting these rooms are not so different from your usual members. A counselor who needs a room for four client hours a week wants the same thing as a freelancer who needs a desk for four hours: professional space, without a long commitment.
1. How to rent private rooms by the hour
Start with the basics. Practitioners need very little from a room: quiet, reliable heating, a sink, decent acoustics and a door that locks. Access to a toilet and a small kitchen helps a lot. These are all cheap to provide, and they matter more than size or decoration.
To fill the hours, list the room where practitioners will find it. That means your own website, local business listings, and room marketplaces such as Rent A Therapy Room. In the listing, say clearly that the room is available by the hour and who it suits (therapy, coaching, massage, phone calls).
Offer two ways to rent: an hourly rate for occasional use, and a monthly rate for practitioners who come several times a week. Practitioners often start hourly and move to a monthly arrangement once they see the room works for them.
Make booking simple. A public calendar or booking link lets a practitioner reserve a room without waiting for a reply to an inquiry. The easier it is to book, the more often it happens.
What you can do in practice: Pick one private room, write a short description that mentions it suits therapy and other one-to-one work, publish an hourly rate, and set up a simple way to book it online. Test it for a month and see what happens.
Generate recurring revenue and offer exceptional customer experience at your shared or coworking space
2. One room, several uses
The same room can earn in several different markets. A therapy session at 10 am, a client call at 2 pm and a small meeting at 4 pm are all compatible uses of one well-equipped room.
What makes a room flexible is simple: furniture that can be rearranged in a few minutes, adjustable lighting, a sink, and a lockable cupboard or shelf where a practitioner can leave their things between sessions. None of this is expensive.
This matters because most of the week, private rooms in coworking spaces sit unused. A room booked for therapy between 9 am and 11 am and for calls between 2 pm and 4 pm is earning in hours that previously produced nothing. The room does not need to be full-time to be worth having. A few booked hours a day, several days a week, adds up quickly.
What you can do in practice: Choose furniture that can be moved in minutes, add a lockable cupboard for visitors' belongings, and describe each room for more than one use in your listings. A room marketed as “therapy room, meeting room, and quiet work room” reaches three audiences with one listing.
3. Why clear, visible pricing helps people book faster
The pricing data from Rent A Therapy Room is worth studying. Most rooms are listed with a monthly rent, and those rents mostly fall between £200 and £500, with some central London rooms going higher. A large share of rooms also publish an hourly rate, and those rates cluster between £10 and £25, with £15 the most common. Many rooms quote both.
The key point is that practitioners decide whether to enquire based on the price they can see. When a rate is published, someone can judge in under a minute whether the room fits their budget, without a phone call or a sales conversation. When a price is hidden behind “contact us for a quote”, many potential renters never make contact at all.
This is already how the room-rental market works: the price is part of the listing, not something revealed later. Coworking operators can apply the same idea to their private rooms by publishing an hourly rate next to the monthly rate.
What you can do in practice: Put your prices on the page. Show an hourly rate and a monthly rate side by side, and keep them realistic for your area. If the room is priced fairly, visible pricing will bring in more inquiries than a “contact us” form ever will.
A small change with steady returns
Private rooms are often the most under-used space in a coworking building. Practitioners do not need much: a quiet room, a sink, a lockable door and a fair hourly rate. In return they bring steady, repeat bookings into hours that would otherwise be empty.
The rooms are already there. The change is to list them, price them clearly and let practitioners book them in the hours you are not using.
Frequently asked questions
How can a coworking space rent private rooms by the hour?
Set up one suitable room with quiet, heating, a sink, decent acoustics and a lockable door. List it on your website, local business listings and relevant room marketplaces, publish an hourly rate, and use a public calendar or booking link for reservations.
Who rents private rooms by the hour?
Therapists, counsellors, coaches, beauticians and other wellness practitioners commonly need professional space for a few client hours each week without committing to a lease.
How much should a private room cost to rent by the hour?
Published rates on Rent A Therapy Room commonly range from £10 to £25 per hour, with £15 the most common. Monthly rents mostly fall between £200 and £500, though location affects pricing.
What should a therapy or consultation room include?
A practical room needs to be quiet, reliably heated, equipped with a sink and decent acoustics, and have a lockable door. Access to a toilet and small kitchen also helps.
Can the same private room be used for therapy, calls and meetings?
Yes. Flexible furniture, adjustable lighting, a sink and lockable storage can make one room suitable for therapy sessions, client calls, small meetings and quiet work at different times of day.
