Business Tips
Barbara Sprenger
August 26, 2026
You scale a coworking space by nailing the fundamentals in your first location, then replicating them: an offering mix that fits the local community, documented operations, KPI tracking, automation that lets members self-serve, and a management structure that survives your absence. The move to a second space, or from one location to a chain, is a systems problem before it's a real estate problem.
Coworking is growing at a tremendous rate, with a surprising number of new spaces opening each year. As a space operator, you may be proud of your model and considering opening another space, expanding your existing space, increasing your offerings, or otherwise scaling your coworking business. As founder of Satellite Workspaces and Deskworks, here are the things I've learned about doing it right.
To scale a coworking space is to grow revenue, membership, or footprint without proportionally growing your cost base or breaking what already works. Scaling can happen inside a single location (adding offices, expanding hours, adding services) or across locations (a second space, a chain, a franchise, a partnership). Both paths depend on the same foundation: repeatable systems, documented operations, and a manager layer that does not depend on you being in the room.
Roughly half of coworking operators run more than one location. The 2025 DeskMag Coworking Trends Survey puts the split at 53% single-location and 47% multi-location. Getting from the first bucket to the second is the transition this post is about.
If you're turning potential members away, it may be time to scale. If you have no dedicated spaces available, it may be time to scale. If you have people asking about other locations, it may be time to scale. If you're consistently profitable and know your model inside and out, it's time to scale. If your existing open space is consistently full, yep, time to scale.
Some operators use a specific occupancy threshold as their trigger: sustained utilization above 95% has been cited in industry guidance as the point where a second location becomes viable. We use "consistently full" as our own trigger, with an 80% pro forma capacity target (more on that in the red flags section below). Whichever metric you use, the point is the same: you should be running out of room before you buy more of it.
Time is also a factor. Global coworking survey data has shown roughly 72% of coworking spaces become profitable after two years. That two-year mark is a reasonable checkpoint for whether the first location's model is proven enough to replicate.
The shared workspace business has some foundational factors, and it's vital to understand their implications: coworking inherently has high fixed costs and low variable costs. Fixed costs include rent, internet, and labor (yes, labor in this context). Once these fixed costs are met, almost all additional revenue flows to the bottom line.
Further, whether you have a 3,000 square foot space or a 20,000 square foot space, you'll need a reception area, restrooms, a kitchen, phone booths, meeting rooms, and a community manager. One more member doesn't add much to cost (a little coffee, a little more bandwidth, maybe a bit more janitorial when you hit a threshold). That's why you want to scale. In a bigger space you're spreading those fixed costs over more revenue-generating items. If you scale to multiple centers, you're spreading the costs of marketing, website, operations, accounting, management, and some software. There is a limit to how much you can make from a single center at a particular size, so multiple centers can be the way to grow the business.
Any type of coworking space can scale if you get the mix of offerings right, understand your local communities, know what should be consistent across centers and what can be unique, have everything documented, and employ automation to be as efficient as possible.
For example, if you have just open space, you may not make it in a smaller community, because there isn't enough volume of individuals who want shared space only. Similarly, you may not be able to scale just private offices because you're leaving out all those people who could use the open space. Smaller communities need a coworking space that offers it all, since you have a smaller area and pool of people to market to.
In a larger community, you can specialize more. Perhaps you like a model that focuses on a particular type of business, like tech startups or therapists or commercial kitchen users. Any of these can work if you've done your market analysis homework and the fundamentals are right.
Before you open a second location, your first location has to run without your hand on it. If you're still working on automation, a staff training manual, operations structure and management, profitability, membership offerings, which coworking software to use, or how to offer 24/7 access, you may not be ready to scale.
Before we expanded from our initial space, we had the coworking IT basics down, best practices around WiFi versus hardwired connections, membership plan structures nailed, and which ergonomic desks and chairs work best at different plan levels. Know your basic modules and "kit of parts" for workspace. For us, it's a basic open coworking desk, which is 2’x4’; then it's a dedicated desk, which is 2’x5’; a workstation, which is 6’x6’; an office, which is 8’x10’; and a double office, which is 10’x12’. These are larger than some experts will tell you, but we find these modules work. We then charge a bit extra if members are putting more people in an office.
All of this is necessary for being able to quickly design and furnish a new space or an expanded space. If you're opening a second coworking space, you already know, or should know, how to run a coworking space. Simplify your operations so you don't unnecessarily spend time on them. Put your hiring processes in place and document them so when you have to make changes you can do it quickly and efficiently.
You cannot scale what you cannot measure. It's vital to know what you should be tracking to be sure a new center is on track. You'll want to compare progress to your budget and pro forma. Have your KPI tracker in place before you start, and be able to see in real time what your availability and occupancy is, what your profitability is, how much various spaces are used, and when you need to change the use of a particular space.
Four numbers matter most before you open a second location:
Deskworks business analytics and reports gives you these four in real time, so you're not exporting spreadsheets to answer whether it's time to scale.
There is more than one way to scale a coworking business, and the right path depends on how much capital you have, how much control you want, and how fast you want to move.
Each model has tradeoffs. What all five have in common: none of them work if the first location's model is not proven and documented. Choose based on your five-year plan, your available capital, and how many locations you actually want to run.
The plan for Satellite Workspaces from the start was to have highly replicable spaces that could be put in new communities. We envisioned suburban coworking with relatively smaller spaces in local neighborhoods. The spaces would be (and are) in iconic buildings and fit the environment and community they are in. As such, some Satellite locations have more dedicated desks, some have more open coworking, and some offer more event space.
We got most of it right in our first location. We didn't have dedicated desks at first, and that turned out to be an important next tier. The Satellite team believed, from the beginning, that we needed a local person in each town to help open a space that reflected the needs, preferences, community, and culture of each location. If you're not doing that, you're just a service provider. This is not something that should be McDonald's. You need a partner who knows the community.
Automation is what makes scaling economically viable. There are a variety of ways to automate your coworking space and make your members as self-sufficient as possible, including having new members self-register, enabling them to reserve meeting rooms, giving them access to their statements, letting them update their information and payment methods, and connecting them with other members through an online directory and message boards.
Automation can also give space operators the ability to do things remotely, such as unlock doors and see who's in the space at any time. You can know what's going on in the space without being there with the right management software. For example, a non-member had reserved a conference room from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., outside staffed hours. We normally wouldn't do this, but we made an exception. There was a bunch of traffic and the community manager couldn't get there in time, but we were able to unlock doors and let them in remotely. Otherwise, we would have had a very unhappy person.
Industry research from 2024 found that automation can improve operational efficiency by up to 54% for coworking operators, and over 90% of operators surveyed view automation as important to their business. That efficiency gain compounds when you go from one location to two, and again from two to five. It is the single biggest lever between "scaled and sane" and "scaled and drowning."
One way to scale is to increase the offerings you provide in your space and to existing members. You can do this by providing expanded digital mail services, offering a variety of membership tiers, and giving members the option to purchase increased bandwidth and other IT offerings in your coworking space.
A great way to increase revenue is to be listed with a group of booking aggregators. You can have the contracts set up ahead of time and flip the switch when you're ready. Don't list with too many, as they do create extra work, but about five should be manageable.
Here are red flags that indicate you are not ready to scale:
Build your pro forma around 80 percent occupancy. Satellite Workplaces evaluates profitability based on this percentage. We will beat that, but we do all our pro formas based on 80 percent. Take an honest look at your books and pro formas to make sure your plan is solid. Be sure you understand how your accounting works, so you really know what you're doing and not kidding yourself.
If any of the four red flags above is present, fix it in the first location before you sign a lease on the second one. A network problem in one space becomes two network problems in two spaces. A community manager who can't step away for a long weekend becomes a hiring crisis the day you open location number two.
In order to scale well in coworking, you have to have a strong community component. This means understanding who your members are, what they're working on and struggling with, providing ways for them to connect with each other, and cultivating a spirit of mutual support and generosity. Deskworks member community features, including the member directory and message board, are built to make this connection easier as your membership grows past the point where the community manager knows everyone by name.
You also need to be part of your extended local community, which you can do with event programming, partnerships, sponsorships, community days, and open houses. The community work does not scale automatically the way software does. It requires the local person mentioned in the section above, and it requires the space itself to feel like a place people want to be, not a place they have to be.
Before you roll out a new space, have a marketing system and strategy in place. Know the questions you need to have answered ahead of time, such as where the Chamber of Commerce is, what the main new outlets and blogs for the neighborhood are, and the popular websites people in the community go to for news and announcements. This will allow you to quickly and efficiently get messages out to the community by leveraging existing community resources.
You'll also need a clear search engine optimization (SEO) strategy to help people find your space online. Invest in an SEO-optimized website and create targeted, keyword-focused content. In a suburban market especially, the search terms are local and specific: "coworking space in [town name]" is often more competitive than the general national keywords, and being the top local result matters more than being on page one nationally.
Do your research about existing spaces in an area before you scale. Look at all the competition and know where you need to price to be competitive. Pricing is one of the fastest signals to the local market about who you are, so make sure it aligns with the offering, not just the square footage.
Perhaps the biggest challenge in scaling is that you have limited hours in the day. If this is your business, you're going to be the one picking up pieces until you're big enough to have an additional layer of management. To help lighten your load, have clear, concise manuals so you can train people easily and replicate your processes. You have to codify processes so people can make decisions without your involvement.
One owner or manager can manage four to five spaces in an area. Beyond that, you need someone who manages the community managers, something like a district manager. Getting that hire wrong is expensive: the district manager sets the tone for every community manager reporting to them, and every community manager sets the tone for their space. Hire slowly, promote from within where you can, and pay for the experience if you can't.
In order to efficiently run your coworking space and scale to a larger space or multiple locations, you need coworking management software that manages the backend cleanly and effectively. The people who are great at running shared workspaces may not be the best at dealing with numbers and details. Let the program do it for you.
Deskworks gives you a framework that simplifies the detailed processes of running your space. It deals with the backend so you can deal with the people. Five capabilities matter most when you scale:
Deskworks was built by coworking operators. Everything above exists because we needed it ourselves before we needed it for anyone else.
When should you open a second coworking location?
Open your second location when the first one is consistently full, profitable, and running without your daily involvement. Sustained occupancy of 80% or higher (with a target of 95% before adding capacity) is a common trigger, but be sure that operations are documented, the space can run occasionally unstaffed, and you have a clear path to profitability in the new location.
How many coworking spaces can one manager oversee?
One owner or general manager can typically oversee four to five coworking spaces in the same region. Beyond five locations you need a manager-of-managers role (a district manager or regional manager) whose full-time job is supporting the community managers on the ground. The exact number depends on how far apart the locations are, how automated the systems are, how well trained staff is and how mature the operations manuals are.
What is the biggest challenge in scaling a coworking business?
The biggest challenge is that the founder-operator only has so many hours in the day, and every new location adds fires that need putting out. Scaling forces you to build a management layer, document every process, and give community managers real decision-making authority before you're ready to let go. Software and automation reduce the load, but they do not replace the management layer.
What KPIs should coworking operators track before scaling?
Track occupancy rate, member retention rate, member lifetime value, and profitability per square foot. These four together tell you whether the demand is real, whether members stay, whether the unit economics work, and whether the space itself is productive enough to justify replicating. Tracking these before you scale (not after) is the difference between an informed second-location decision and a hopeful one.
Do you need software to scale a coworking business?
Yes. Scaling a coworking business past a single location without dedicated coworking management software means duplicating manual work across every space you open, and losing visibility into what is happening in the spaces you are not physically in. Software handles bookings, billing, member management, usage tracking, and reporting so the operator's time can go to community, staff, and strategy instead of spreadsheets - as long as it’s simple-to-use, intuitive, and flexible software like Deskworks.
Business Tips
Barbara Sprenger
August 26, 2026
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