Guide · updated 2026-08-15

What size storage unit do you actually need

Sizing advice is the same everywhere. What is not the same everywhere is how available each size is, and what it costs — so those columns come from 4,617 real locations rather than from a brochure.

Be clear about what this is. The "what fits" column below is ordinary industry guidance, not something our data can tell you — no listing records what anyone put inside. The availability and price columns are measured. We are separating them because a guide that dresses up common knowledge as proprietary research is the kind of thing you should stop trusting.

What each size actually looks like

Every floor plan below is drawn at ONE scale, so they are comparable to each other and not just to themselves. The objects are at their published dimensions on the same scale. This is footprint only — it says nothing about how high you can stack.

5x5 · 25 sq ft · typically $44 · at 78% of locations

5x10 · 50 sq ft · typically $66 · at 94% of locations

5x15 · 75 sq ft · typically $94 · at 54% of locations

10x10 · 100 sq ft · typically $114 · at 96% of locations

10x15 · 150 sq ft · typically $146 · at 87% of locations

10x20 · 200 sq ft · typically $178 · at 88% of locations

10x25 · 250 sq ft · typically $196 · at 39% of locations

10x30 · 300 sq ft · typically $253 · at 59% of locations

Size	Sq ft	Roughly fits	Locations with it	Typical
5x5	25	A closet. Boxes, a bicycle, seasonal decorations, a few small pieces of furniture. Not a mattress.	78%	$44
5x10	50	A studio flat, or the contents of one bedroom. A mattress set on its side, a dresser, boxes, a bike.	94%	$66
5x15	75	One bedroom with furniture, or a small flat without appliances. Long and narrow — awkward for bulky items.	54%	$94
10x10	100	Two bedrooms, or a full one-bedroom flat including sofa and appliances. The most commonly rented size.	96%	$114
10x15	150	Three bedrooms, or a two-bedroom flat with appliances. Fits most of a small house move.	87%	$146
10x20	200	A three-bedroom house, or a car plus household goods. Roughly a single garage.	88%	$178
10x25	250	A large house move, or a vehicle with room to spare around it.	39%	$196
10x30	300	Four to five bedrooms, or two vehicles. Rare, and priced accordingly.	59%	$253

Size up, once. The most common regret is a unit you cannot walk into. If you are between two sizes, the larger one usually costs proportionally less per square foot — see the price-per-square-foot data — and leaves you an aisle. Going up two sizes "to be safe" is where that logic stops paying.

Measure the awkward thing, not the volume. Most people who run out of room do so because of one item: a sofa that will not corner, a mattress that cannot be stood on end, a desk that only fits diagonally. Volume estimates rarely fail; single large objects do.

Check availability before you plan around a size. The rightmost columns show how many locations actually stock each size. The rarer ones are not merely dearer — in many markets they simply are not there, which turns a careful plan into a last-minute compromise on moving day.

Figures recomputed from the price database on 2026-08-15. Every number on this page is generated from observations, not written by hand, so it moves as the data does.

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