What should I budget for office furniture?
Our goal is to give you some guide post so that you can have a good budget number within a few minutes to start planning your next project.
It is a basic question, how much does office furniture cost? For some reason, the office interiors industry makes that answer extremely hard to find. It is always answered with a qualifier like “about” or “assuming” and the sad truth is the price varies based on your relationship or negotiating power with the furniture dealer, the dealer’s relationship and negotiating power with the manufacturer and a myriad of other factors. You cannot get a straight answer on one chair much less a whole office.
Sometimes you just need some rough numbers to build a budget knowing there will be range. Our goal is to give you some guide post so that you can have a good budget number within a few minutes to start planning your next project. If you have 15-20 minutes, our build tool offers a firm budgetary quote for furniture.
One good budget tool is to plan the budget by square foot. If you can reuse some furniture from an old office, buy used or if some was left by an old tenant, you should plan on spending about $.15/square foot to finish out your space. If you would like to select your finish options but a basic planning style fits your needs you should plan on $.25/square foot. Perhaps you are competing for talent and would like a space to impress both potential talent and clients. You need a mix of private spaces and workstations along with ample areas to collaborate and congregate. You should plan on $.35/square foot or more.
Perhaps you have a small office, or you think of things more in terms of workstations or head count. In that case $1,500 – $4,000 is your number. A quality but simple workstation with a small amount of storage will be about $1,500 per seat. Something a little larger with some storage will run about $2,500 per seat. If you need more storage or would like quality wood veneer, plan on $4,000 per person and up. Remember though, you need more than just workstations in an office. You also need reception areas, meeting rooms, break rooms, etc. Add 50% to 100% to your workstation total to account for these items.
We also have a tool to do all these calculations for you, click here to experience our One – Minute Budget Builder.
