Serviced office or conventional lease: the full one-year calculation

When a company compares a conventional lease with an office in a business center, it almost always compares two rents. That is the mistake: rent is the only line where the lease is cheaper.

The upfront investment nobody budgets for

Before it even opens, an empty office demands:

• office furniture — around 3,000 TND at entry level;
• meeting room furniture — 1,500 TND;
• a reception fit-out and minimal decoration — 2,500 TND;
• network, internet and telephony infrastructure — 2,500 TND;
• office equipment: printer, copier, consumables, maintenance — 3,500 TND.

That is 13,000 TND out of your cash before the first invoice goes out. In a serviced office, this line is zero.

Running costs

Over twelve months, leased premises generate, on top of the rent:

• electricity, water, service charges, building management, air conditioning: 8,000 TND;
• staff costs — reception, cleaning, maintenance: 13,000 TND;
• cleaning products and consumables: 2,000 TND.

All three disappear in a business center: they are included in the rent.

The first-year total

The gap is 24,000 TND over twelve months, for the same floor space. It does not come from negotiating the rent, but from charges you do not pay and equipment you do not buy.

What the table cannot show

Three advantages appear in no spreadsheet but weigh heavily in practice.

Lead time. A serviced office is operational the day you sign. Empty premises take six to ten weeks between quotes, fit-out and connection.

Reversibility. You go from three desks to six without renegotiating a lease, without an extra deposit and without moving.

No management. Nobody to hire for reception, nobody to replace during sick leave, no maintenance contract to follow.

The honest limit of this calculation

These figures are estimates, excluding tax, for a standard configuration. A long lease on a large floor plate outside the centre can reverse the result, and a thirty-person company does not reason like a team of four.

The calculation holds mainly for two to fifteen-person organisations — precisely those with neither the time nor the cash to fit out an empty floor. For anyone else, ask for a costed proposal on your actual floor space: that is the only figure that counts.