The cost to build storage units runs about 55 to 170 dollars per gross square foot in hard cost, before land, soft costs and equipment, per Terrapin Construction Group's May 2026 guide. Covered boat and RV space runs 25 to 55 dollars. Enter your own numbers below for totals, cost per unit and yield on cost.
Storage unit build cost calculator
Pick a building type and enter your rentable square feet. The tool fills in a published cost range, which you can overwrite with a real bid, then adds site work, soft costs, equipment and land. Enter rent and occupancy to see whether the income supports the budget.
Storage build cost calculator
Set site work to 0 if your contractor's price already includes it. This builds 50,000 gross sq ft and about 410 units.
Stabilized income
The budget, line by line
| Line | Low | Mid | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hard cost | $4,000,000 | $5,000,000 | $6,000,000 |
| Site work | $400,000 | $500,000 | $600,000 |
| Soft costs | $720,000 | $900,000 | $1,080,000 |
| Equipment and security | $240,000 | $300,000 | $360,000 |
| Land | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 |
| Total | $6,360,000 | $7,700,000 | $9,040,000 |
| Per rentable sq ft | $155.12 | $187.80 | $220.49 |
| Per unit | $15,512 | $18,780 | $22,049 |
| Yield on cost | 6.47% | 5.34% | 4.55% |
Runs in your browser. Nothing is stored or sent. Hard cost ranges and efficiency come from Terrapin Construction Group (updated May 2026), except canopy efficiency, which is an assumption. Rent is the Yardi Matrix national average through August 2026, which does not cover boat and RV spaces, so enter your own rent for those. Land, site work, occupancy and unit size defaults are assumptions; Wasatch Structures puts site work at $8 to $25 per gross sq ft. Every number is editable. Planning math only, not a bid or investment advice.
Key takeaways
- Terrapin's May 2026 hard costs: $55 to $85 per gross sq ft for drive-up, $80 to $120 for single story climate controlled, $105 to $170 for multistory.
- Those figures exclude land, soft costs and equipment. Terrapin says to add 25 to 40 percent for total project cost, and land is 12 to 45 percent of the total depending on the market.
- Prices are per gross foot, but you earn rent on rentable feet. Multistory buildings typically deliver 65 to 75 percent rentable, per Terrapin.
- The default 41,000 rentable sq ft example costs about $7.7 million at the midpoint and yields about 5.3 percent. Terrapin puts the common target at 7.5 to 9 percent.
| Building type | Hard cost per gross sq ft (Terrapin) | Rentable efficiency (Terrapin) | Shell per rentable sq ft (Wasatch) | All-in per rentable sq ft (Wasatch) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single story drive-up | $55 to $85 | 80% to 88% | $30 to $55 | $70 to $110 |
| Single story climate controlled | $80 to $120 | 82% in its example | Drive-up plus $15 to $30 | Drive-up plus $15 to $30 |
| Multistory climate controlled | $105 to $170 | 65% to 75% | $65 to $110 | $100 to $180 |
| Boat and RV, covered or canopy | $25 to $55 | Not published | $18 to $35 | Not published |
| Boat and RV, enclosed | $65 to $95 | Not published | $40 to $75 | Not published |
How much does it cost to build storage units?
Building storage units usually costs 55 to 170 dollars per gross square foot before land and soft costs, depending on the building. After those are added, the example project in Terrapin's guide, 60,000 gross square feet of single story climate controlled space, comes to 7.9 to 11.7 million dollars.
That works out to 132 to 195 dollars per gross foot, or 161 to 238 dollars per rentable foot. Notice how far that sits above the hard cost headline. The 90 dollar quote on the first call is a real number and also about half the story.
The two sources in the table measure different things, so do not compare them straight across. Terrapin quotes hard cost per gross foot nationally. Wasatch Structures quotes Mountain West ranges per rentable foot and says coastal and union markets run 20 to 40 percent higher. Terrapin adds that its range moved up another 3 to 5 percent between April and May on steel and aluminum tariffs. Use both as a check, then replace them with a bid.
How much does it cost to build 100 storage units?
About 700,000 dollars to 1.4 million dollars all-in, land separate, for 100 units averaging 100 square feet, per Wasatch's Mountain West ranges. That is 7,000 to 14,000 dollars a unit. Wasatch also warns that per-door pricing misleads, since a 5 by 5 and a 10 by 30 are both one door. Compare by rentable foot, and use cost per unit as a sanity check.
What about converting a building instead?
Terrapin puts adaptive reuse at 35 to 70 dollars per gross foot, or 40 to 60 percent of the cost of ground-up, and says it can start revenue 6 to 10 months sooner. The catch is the building. Terrapin wants at least 14 feet of clear height for single story climate controlled space, 12 for ambient, and columns at 30 by 30 feet or wider. Miss those and the savings go away. To test a conversion here, enter your own hard cost range in the calculator.
What sets the cost per square foot for self storage?
Four things set the cost per square foot for self storage: the building type, the region, the site and how much of the building you can rent. The type is the largest swing. Region can move the same building by more than 60 percent, and a rough site can add more per foot than a contractor's shell quote suggests.
| Region | Hard cost per gross sq ft |
|---|---|
| Midwest | $76 to $105 |
| Southeast | $78 to $108 |
| Texas Triangle | $80 to $110 |
| Mountain West | $82 to $112 |
| Florida | $85 to $118 |
| Mid-Atlantic | $92 to $128 |
| Pacific Northwest | $95 to $132 |
| Northeast | $112 to $152 |
| Coastal California | $125 to $165 |
- Site work. Wasatch puts it at 8 to 25 dollars per gross foot of building and says a bad site can pass 40 dollars. Terrapin's example has no separate site line, so ask each contractor what their number includes. Otherwise you may count it twice or not at all.
- Soft costs. Terrapin lists design at 5 to 8 percent of hard cost, permits and impact fees at 2 to 5, financing at 3 to 6, and insurance and bonds at 1 to 2. Together that is 15 to 22 percent in its total.
- Equipment and security. Gates, cameras, software and office fit-out: 4 to 8 percent of hard cost per Terrapin.
- Efficiency. Terrapin calls a wrong efficiency assumption the first planning mistake: use 85 percent on a multistory building and revenue comes in 12 to 18 percent short.
- Land for boat and RV. The canopy is cheap and the acreage is not. Terrapin says covered RV takes 2 to 3 times the site area for comparable revenue, so run the land first.
Wasatch also suggests a contingency of 5 to 10 percent, or more on an uncertain site. The calculator has no separate line for it, so add it to soft costs.
Does it pay to build storage units? Yield on cost
Yield on cost is stabilized net operating income divided by total project cost, and it is how you test whether building makes sense. If you could buy a finished facility at the same return, building adds risk for nothing. Terrapin says it needs to clear the stabilized cap rate by 150 to 200 basis points, or roughly 7.5 to 9 percent.
The calculator's example does not get there, which is the useful part. 41,000 rentable feet at the Yardi Matrix national averageof 16.39 dollars a foot through August 2026 and 90 percent occupancy brings in about 605,000 dollars. At 32 percent expenses, Terrapin's figure, net operating income is about 411,000 dollars. On a 7.7 million dollar budget that is a yield of about 5.3 percent.
To reach 7.5 percent, that budget needs rent near 23 dollars a foot. Or, at today's rent, the whole project has to cost about 5.5 million dollars. Terrapin's own example lands at 5.83 percent and it says that gap explains why new development pulled back. It says the deals that work tend to have cheaper land, a conversion, or premium space in a market short on supply. Yardi's October report says advertised rates fell 1.8 percent year over year in September, so do not count on rent rising by itself.
Lease-up is the line this calculator does not model. It shows the building once it is full. Wasatch expects 12 to 24 months of lease-up before real cash flow, and you carry the loan the whole time. The guide to starting a self storage business covers lease-up, the business plan and the build, buy or convert decision, so read it before you go past this estimate. This is planning math and not investment advice, so test your deal with your lender and your advisor.
How to build storage units with the budget in hand
To build storage units on budget, get the number from a real site as early as you can. Check zoning first, because a town that will not permit storage makes the rest of this page academic. Then get a layout before you lock a loan, since the layout sets your efficiency and your unit count.
- Replace the ranges. Overwrite the hard cost fields with a local bid, and ask what it excludes.
- Use local rent. A national average is a starting point. Read the rates at the facilities closest to your site, by unit size.
- Plan who runs it. Your staffing choice changes the operating expense line. The self storage automation guide covers what to automate first.
The line item that is missing: who answers the phone
Storage facilities can run with nobody on site. Gates take codes, leases go online, and rent goes on autopay. So once you have spent seven million dollars and opened empty, a person with a moving truck booked for Saturday calls your number, and nobody is there to pick up. They call the next facility on the map.
Sample call: a Saturday rental
That is the job callflo.ai does for storage operators. It answers 24/7 and quotes from what you give it. On VIP it can also collect the first month or a deposit by card during the call through Stripe. Crooked River Self Storage runs two locations on one number, with 329 calls answered and 56 leads captured. The AI receptionist for self storage post shows what it does with each kind of call.
Next to a build budget the cost is small. Starter is 39 dollars a month on annual billing, or 49 dollars month to month, with 120 minutes and extra minutes at 0.98 dollars. VIP is 697 dollars a month on annual billing, or 997 dollars month to month, with 1,000 minutes and a team running it. It will not fill a building in a market with too many units, and it is no substitute for a person where you keep an on-site manager who actually catches every call. Plans are on the pricing page.
Hear who answers when nobody is on site
Call callflo.ai's own AI agent and ask it anything about your business. When you are ready, pick a plan: no setup fee, no contract, and you do not pay unless you are satisfied.
Starter is $39 a month on annual billing. Live on your line about 5 minutes after you sign up.