Is self storage cheaper than moving to a bigger house?

For a spare room's worth of belongings, usually yes. The median (middle value) of the listed prices for a 25 sq ft unit, which holds a single spare room, on our September 2026 price lists is £78 every four weeks, about £1,014 a year. Nothing is added at checkout: the total in your quote is what you pay, and our prices include VAT. The Office for National Statistics puts the extra rent for a three-bedroom home over a two-bedroom one at £1,848 a year across England and £3,348 a year in the South East (August 2026).

Storage stops being the cheaper answer when you would need a large unit for years, and it cannot help when you are short of bedrooms for people rather than room for things. If you own, moving up from the average terraced house to the average semi in England costs about £11,151 once, plus about £2,067 a year in extra mortgage interest if you borrow the whole difference. Growing families, downsizers, renters and owners each have a section below, and your town's figures are in the table.

What storage costs over a year

Our price lists show a price per week and per four weeks, and a year is 13 four-week periods. The figures below are the median (middle value) and range of the standard prices listed for each size on our September 2026 price lists. Introductory offers, where a site has one, cut only the first 4, 8 or 12 weeks, so for a year or more budget on the standard price.

"Roughly holds" follows our room-by-room size guide. Some price lists also include units smaller than 25 sq ft, such as 10 sq ft at Alton and Bath. When you compare with rent, remember that we charge every four weeks, which is 13 payments a year, not 12: multiply our four-week price by 13, and a monthly rent by 12.

What an extra bedroom costs to rent, town by town

The ONS publishes average private rents by number of bedrooms. Across England in August 2026, a second bedroom added £1,680 a year to the average rent, a third £1,848, and four or more bedrooms £8,064 more than a three-bedroom home. That last band includes larger homes, so it is wider than a strict three-to-four step.

The table sets the extra rent for a third bedroom in the council area for the sites below against a year of storage there at the standard price (lowest to highest listed). To turn a yearly storage figure back into a four-weekly quote, divide by 13: at Burton-on-Trent, for example, 25 sq ft is £52 to £60 every four weeks.

Bristol Hengrove opens in October 2026, so it has no price list yet. Cheltenham and Warminster aren't on the price list these figures come from, so the online quote gives their prices; from Cheltenham, Tewkesbury is the nearest listed site for comparison. At Chipping Norton the cheaper 25 and 100 sq ft units are on a mezzanine floor with no lift; on the ground floor, 25 sq ft is £1,144 a year and 100 sq ft is £2,340. Some units on the second floor at Lincoln are listed as restricted height; if height matters, ask us before you book.

Read across a row and the pattern is plain. At 25 sq ft, no listed price in the table comes near the extra rent for its council area. At 50 sq ft, only the top Bromsgrove price (£2,392 against £2,304) goes over. At 100 sq ft it is close or reversed in many places (see the renters' section).

These rents are averages across a whole council area, and Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire cover far more than Marlow or Warminster, so for your real answer compare two listings near you, one with the extra bedroom and one without. If you live near one of our towns rather than in it, look up your own council area in the ONS private rents data.

Which side of the line are you on?

One test applies to everyone: how often will you need the things? Weekend kit you fetch every Friday and put back every Sunday is a different proposition from a bed frame stored for a year. Storage suits things you don't need week to week. Access is normally 6am to 10pm; Cheltenham's page lists 8:00am to 6:00pm Monday to Friday and 10:00am to 4:00pm at weekends and bank holidays as well as "Unlimited Free Access: 6am to 10pm", so confirm your hours when you book.

A growing family short of space

Ask first whether you're short of space for things or for people. If the box room is full of boxes, a spare bed and seasonal kit, a 25 sq ft unit can clear it, and the room becomes usable again. If children will share a room for the first year or two, the spare room is still a room for things until then. If a child needs a bedroom you don't have, storage can buy time while you save or wait for the right house, but it can't make a bedroom. Going from three bedrooms to four or more is the steepest step in the ONS figures, £8,064 a year across England; the median of the listed 100 sq ft prices, £2,990 a year, is well under half of that. If bikes or other bulky items are on the list, check the size guide before choosing a size.

Downsizing: is it worth keeping the bigger house for the furniture?

On these figures, only if you'd need a lot of storage for a long time. Six months (26 weeks) of 25 sq ft at the median of the listed prices is about £507, which gives you time to decide what goes to family, what sells and what fits the new place. A 100 sq ft unit for a whole house of furniture, held for years, is a different sum: £2,990 a year at the median, and up to £6,812 at the dearest listed price. Weigh that against simply keeping less. Our guide to what to keep, store or pass on helps with the sort.

Renting: storage or a bigger rented home?

For a small amount of storage, the unit wins: no listed 25 sq ft price in the table comes near the extra rent. The balance tips once you need a lot: a year of 100 sq ft costs within about £500 of a third bedroom's extra rent, or more than it, at Bath, Bromsgrove, Burton-on-Trent, Dorking, Leatherhead, Lincoln, Marlow, Reading and Shipston-on-Stour. At Reading, for example, it is £3,146 to £3,380 against £3,336. If you'd need that much storage there, the bigger home costs about the same or less, and it gives you a room to live in. At Alton, Chipping Norton, March and Tewkesbury, 100 sq ft stays cheaper than the extra rent, by about £300 to £1,800 a year.

Moving still has one-off costs: removals (typically £603 for a two-bedroom house) and a new tenancy deposit (refundable, and capped at five weeks' rent where the yearly rent is under £50,000), plus up to a week's rent as a holding deposit. Since 1 May 2026 assured tenancies in England roll on with no end date, and a landlord can ask for no more than two months' notice from you. On the storage side, our terms say either side may end the agreement "by giving the other party written notice", and the notice period is on your agreement's cover sheet (clause 41).

Owning: storage or buying bigger?

HM Land Registry doesn't publish prices by number of bedrooms, so property type is the nearest official guide. As a worked example, take someone selling the average terraced house in England (£247,081 in July 2026) and buying the average semi-detached (£292,024), and set that against storage at Tewkesbury:

A year of 25 or 50 sq ft at Tewkesbury costs less than the extra interest alone, so on these figures moving never catches up. 100 sq ft costs £143 to £325 a year more than that interest, so it would take 34 to 78 years to use up the £11,151, a little sooner as the interest falls with repayments. Against that, a bigger home is an asset you own, while a storage fee buys nothing you keep.

If you'd move anyway in a year or two, the one-off moving costs are paid either way, so leave them out. The comparison is storage for the waiting years against the extra mortgage interest for the same years: 2 × £2,067 = £4,134 of interest. Two years of 25 sq ft costs £1,560 to £1,716 at Tewkesbury and £2,028 at the median of the listed prices; only the dearest listed 25 sq ft prices come close (£3,900 to £4,888 at Leatherhead). Two years of 100 sq ft at Tewkesbury, £4,420 to £4,784, costs more than the interest. A bigger price gap where you live raises the interest figure, and waiting carries the risk that prices or mortgage rates change before you move.

Short of a workshop or hobby room

If the space you're short of is somewhere to work, storage isn't the answer, because our terms say "You will use the Unit solely for the purpose of storage" and bar connecting utilities unless we authorise it (clause 22(e); see do storage units have electricity?).

Costs on both sides that the headline misses

Storage has costs beyond the unit that aren't on our price list, so ask about each one when you get your quote:

• A deposit. Our terms say "You must pay the Deposit on signing this Agreement", and it is refunded, less any deductions, within 21 days of the agreement ending (clause 4). The amount isn't on the price list. Ask: "Is there a deposit on this unit, and how much is it?"
• Cover for your goods. Our terms require your goods to be insured while they're stored, either by your own policy "for their Replacement Value" (clause 31) or through cover we arrange (clause 48). See how much contents cover you need.
• A lock. Ask whether you need to bring your own padlock for your unit.

Your things are also a drive away, so count the trips. On the other side, a bigger home can sit in a higher council tax band and cost more to heat and furnish, and those costs run for as long as you live there.

Work out your own sum

Take the extra rent (or the moving costs plus interest) for the next size of home where you live, and set it against a year of the unit size you'd need. For the storage side, get a price online for your nearest site, or call us on 0800 2545585 and we'll help you work out the size and answer the deposit and padlock questions above. Our cost-benefit guide covers the times storage isn't the right answer at all.

Related questions

• Is self storage worth it? An honest cost-benefit guide
• How much does it cost to store furniture?
• Self storage when you're renting before you buy