Numbers Show Coworking Operators are Missing Out on Meeting Rooms Revenue
Coworking operators could be missing a significant revenue opportunity from an asset they already have: meeting rooms. Data collected by Cobot, the coworking management software platform, shows a substantial gap between the meeting room capacity available across coworking spaces and the amount being booked by external customers.
The full Cobot report on external bookings is available here.
Speaking with Jean-Yves Huwart, founder of Coworking Europe, Thilo Utke, co-founder of Cobot, shared data from the German market showing that 62% of the coworking spaces in its dataset already make resources available for external bookings. But actual external usage remains extremely low.
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Across the spaces analysed, overall meeting room utilization averaged around 12%, based on an eight-hour day, five days a week. Bookings made externally through the available booking tools represented just 0.6% of utilization.
Another 3% of bookings were made by administrators rather than members. Some of these could also represent external customers whose reservations were entered manually by coworking teams, although Cobot cannot determine this from the data. Even combining those figures, the share remains below 4%.
The pattern is not limited to spaces outside major business centres. Cobot found similar levels of availability in German cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants and outside them. Even on peak days in cities, overall meeting room utilization reached only around 20%. According to Utke, similar patterns can also be seen in Cobot’s data from other European markets.
The inventory exists. The external customers are barely using it
The figures suggest that coworking operators do not necessarily need to create a new product to unlock additional revenue. Many already have meeting rooms, already allow external bookings and still have substantial unused capacity.
“So basically it just shows that there is so much more potential for operators” – Utke said.
Part of the challenge is visibility. A member already knows the coworking space, its meeting rooms and how they work. An external customer searching for somewhere to hold a meeting starts from a very different position.
Operators therefore need to provide more information if they want to compete for these customers. That can mean better photographs and more detailed descriptions, but also practical information about what comes with the room. Is there a projector? Can catering be ordered? What equipment and additional services are available?
Meeting rooms also need to be visible beyond the operator’s own website. Utke points to channels such as Google Maps and aggregator platforms as ways operators can increase the surface on which potential customers discover their meeting room inventory.
From manual enquiries to transactional bookings
The booking process itself can also create friction. While coworking operators are accustomed to selling memberships and desks through structured online processes, external meeting room bookings can still involve phone calls, discussions about requirements and manual administration before it is even clear whether the customer will book.
Utke sees an opportunity for meeting room bookings to become more transactional. Rather than discussing every detail before the reservation is made, customers should be able to see the offer, understand the conditions and book first. Any additional arrangements can then be handled afterwards.
This would bring the process closer to the way other professional meeting room providers already sell their inventory.
Successful meeting rooms can also command higher prices
Cobot’s data also challenges the assumption that attracting external customers requires operators to compete primarily on price. Among the German spaces analysed, the median external markup was around 1.5 times the member price in cities. But the top 10% of spaces were charging external customers more than twice their member rate.
Cobot also compared spaces charging below and above a 1.5-times markup. Rooms with the higher markup were substantially more popular with both members and external customers. The finding does not establish that higher prices create demand. Instead, Utke suggests that operators with popular meeting rooms appear to manage external demand through pricing while still generating more revenue from those bookings.
External customers do not appear to be competing with members
One reason operators may hesitate to promote meeting rooms more aggressively is the need to ensure availability for existing members. For a coworking operator, the people already working in the space naturally come first. But the utilization figures suggest there is currently little evidence of external demand competing significantly with member usage.
External bookings through Cobot’s available tools account for less than 1% of utilization, while overall meeting room utilization also remains low. Interestingly, Cobot found that spaces with meeting rooms popular among members also tend to attract more external bookings. A good meeting room, in other words, can appeal to both audiences.
A revenue opportunity already inside the coworking space
The opportunity highlighted by Cobot is relatively straightforward: coworking operators have meeting room capacity that is currently underused, particularly by people outside their existing communities. The product already exists. Unlocking more of its revenue potential may instead depend on making it easier to discover, understand and book.
Better pictures and descriptions, clear information about services and equipment, greater visibility on external platforms, straightforward online booking and appropriate external pricing can all help operators reach customers beyond their membership base.
For an industry constantly looking at new revenue streams, some of that additional revenue may already be sitting inside the building — in meeting rooms that remain empty for much of the working week.
Thilo Utke will join the Coworking Europe 2026 Conference in Paris on November 5–6, where operators, landlords, technology providers and other flex workspace professionals will discuss the operational and business models shaping the European coworking and flexible workspace market.
