A practical guide for coworking operators looking to optimize pricing, positioning, and plan performance.
Coworking revenue doesn’t just grow through sales—it grows through smart structure. The way your membership plans are priced, bundled, and communicated has one of the biggest impacts on your profitability. Yet many operators rarely stop to audit whether their plans are still aligned with market demand, operating costs, or competitive positioning.
A thorough membership plan audit ensures your pricing is strategic, your offerings are clear, and your team is selling the right product to the right customer at the right time. Here’s a step-by-step process to evaluate your plans and unlock hidden revenue opportunities.
1. Start With a Clear Goal
Before diving into spreadsheets or plans, determine the real objective of the audit. Common goals include:
- Increasing revenue per member
- Improving occupancy in specific product types (private offices, dedicated desks, day passes)
- Simplifying the sales process
- Aligning your plans with a changing target market
- Addressing declining occupancy or elevated churn
- Ensuring pricing keeps up with rising operational costs
Having clarity upfront makes your audit more targeted and strategic.
2. Analyze the Performance of Each Plan
Pull the past 6–12 months of data for each membership type. Your analysis should include:
- Occupancy trends: Where are you consistently full? Where are you struggling?
- Revenue per square foot: Which products produce the highest return?
- Churn rate: Which plans have the highest turnover? Why?
- Acquisition rate: Which products naturally sell? Which require heavy incentives?
- Average contract length: Higher stability often signals strong product-market fit.
- Discount usage: Are you discounting certain products too often?
This performance snapshot reveals which plans need adjusting, retiring, or rewriting.
3. Review Market Comparisons
Even top-performing coworking brands need routine competitive benchmarking. Compare your plans against:
- Local coworking competitors
- National brands with similar amenities
- Boutique or niche operators targeting similar demographics
- Third-party referral sites (LiquidSpace, Peerspace, Deskpass)
- Google My Business listings and reviews from competitors
- Regional labor market and income trends
Identify gaps: Are you underpriced? Is your value proposition stronger? Do competitors bundle amenities you don’t include—or vice versa?
4. Evaluate Pricing Strategy and Structure
Ask the following:
Are your plans priced based on value—not cost?
Price should reflect the perceived benefit to customers, not just your expenses.
Are your increments logical?
For example, if a private office is $700/mo and a dedicated desk is $650/mo, the price gap may be too small to make sense. Likewise, if a day pass is $25 but a monthly shared workspace plan is only $99, you may unintentionally devalue monthly memberships.
Are discounting rules consistent?
Inconsistent, ad-hoc discounting creates unpredictable revenue streams and undermines your pricing integrity.
Do you offer too many options?
A bloated menu confuses members and slows down sales. A concise, targeted plan list converts faster.
5. Audit the Value Proposition of Each Plan
Every plan should have a clear, differentiated “why.” For each membership:
- List included amenities
- Evaluate if they are valuable or unnecessary
- Identify features that should be add-ons instead of bundled
- Look for amenities that add cost but not revenue
- Ensure each product solves a specific customer problem
Your plans should be distinct—not overlapping or competing with each other.
6. Review Contract Terms and Member Expectations
A well-structured membership agreement supports revenue by:
- Setting clear usage rules and boundaries
- Establishing predictable billing cycles
- Supporting upselling pathways
- Reducing churn by aligning expectations
- Minimizing operational headaches that cost time and money
Ensure your agreements are aligned with your operating model—and are easy for members to understand.
7. Evaluate Upsell and Cross-Sell Opportunities
Your membership plans should naturally guide members toward higher-value offerings. Examples:
- From shared workspace → dedicated desk
- From dedicated desk → interior office → window office
- From small office → larger team suite
- From day passes → part-time → full-time memberships
Ask: Does our current plan ladder encourage progression? Or is it too easy to “stay small”?
8. Audit Your Digital Presentation
Your website is often the first place prospects interact with your plans. Review:
- SEO factors: Are product pages optimized for city + product keywords?
- SEM strategy: Do your ads match the pricing and offerings listed?
- Lead flow: Is your call-to-action clear?
- Photography: Do visuals match the value of your pricing?
- Third-party listings: Are your plans consistent across platforms?
- Google reviews: Do they support the premium value you’re charging?
If your digital positioning feels “cheaper” than your physical experience, you’re likely undercharging.
9. Gather Feedback from Your Sales Team
Your frontline team knows exactly where prospects get confused or hesitate. Ask:
- Which plans do prospects not understand?
- Which plans do they avoid talking about?
- Which ones are easiest to sell—and why?
- Are there plans that feel unnecessary or outdated?
This qualitative data often reveals misalignment you won’t catch in spreadsheets.
Read Our Blog: Mastering Sales Training for Coworking Spaces
10. Simplify, Update, and Reposition
Based on your findings, you may need to:
- Adjust pricing (up or down)
- Remove outdated plans
- Reposition certain memberships
- Simplify your offerings
- Introduce add-ons instead of freebies
- Update plan descriptions to be clearer and more compelling
- Refresh your sales scripts and pricing sheets
- Realign SEM/SEO to support your new structure
A strong plan audit always ends with action—not just insights.
Final Thoughts: Audit Twice a Year
Coworking is dynamic. Market trends shift, competitors adjust, and customer expectations evolve rapidly. A twice-yearly membership audit keeps your plans fresh, aligned, and revenue-optimized.
At FWS, we do a bi-yearly membership and competitor audit. We believe in the value of treating your pricing and memberships as living components—not static documents—you unlock significant growth opportunities without needing more space, more staff, or more amenities.