Coworking or Cafe: The Cost Comparison Nobody Runs

Run the arithmetic and the two options cost roughly the same. A cafe session at the going rate of an order every ninety minutes runs about 1.50 to 2.50 euros an hour in most European cities. A coworking day pass at 15 to 25 euros over an eight hour day is about the same, and a monthly hot desk at 120 to 200 euros over twenty days is cheaper per hour than either.

Which means money is not the deciding factor, and most comparisons that lead with money are answering the wrong question. Four other things decide it.

Calls

This is the real dividing line. If your day has more than about two calls in it, a cafe stops working, and not for etiquette reasons: you cannot reliably take a call in a room whose noise you do not control, and the alternative of stepping outside for each one turns a working day into a series of interruptions.

One or two scheduled calls is manageable in a cafe with headphones and a quiet corner. A day of back-to-back meetings is a coworking day, or a home day.

Storage and the return trip

A coworking desk lets you leave a monitor, a keyboard and a jacket. A cafe means carrying everything, twice a day.

This sounds minor and it is the thing that most often decides it in practice, because it compounds. Carrying a laptop, charger, notebook and water bottle changes what else you can do with the day: no gym bag, no shopping on the way home, no bike.

Whether the day can absorb a bad room

The honest weakness of the cafe is variance. Most sessions are fine. Some are ruined by a table of six, a broken machine, or the one seat with a socket already being taken.

On a day with slack, that variance is free: you move, or you lose twenty minutes. Planned properly, moving is the point rather than the cost. On a day with a deadline at four, it is not, and paying fifteen euros to remove the variance is obviously worth it.

The rule that falls out of this: cafes for the days you can afford to lose an hour, coworking for the days you cannot.

Company, of a specific kind

Both solve loneliness, differently. A cafe gives you the presence of other people with none of the obligation to talk to them, which is exactly right for some people and not enough for others.

Coworking gives you people you will end up speaking to. Whether that is the point or the problem depends entirely on you, and it is worth being honest with yourself rather than aspirational: most people who buy a coworking membership for the community use it as a quiet desk.

What the cafe actually gives you that coworking does not

Variety, which matters more than it sounds. Working from the same desk every day has the same problem as working from home, in a nicer room.

Coverage. There are more than 2,000 cafes in the nine cities we have read, and there are perhaps a few dozen coworking spaces in any of them. Whatever neighbourhood you are in, a workable cafe is a few minutes away.

City	Cafes read	Fast Wi-Fi	Laptop friendly	Open past 9pm
Berlin	499	58%of 228 rated	58%of 358	28%140 places
Barcelona	434	63%of 281 rated	60%of 248	57%249 places
Canggu	377	78%of 251 rated	76%of 280	61%229 places
Lisboa	308	74%of 140 rated	64%of 213	34%105 places
Chiang Mai	286	81%of 180 rated	75%of 208	24%68 places
Bangkok	220	80%of 61 rated	81%of 105	15%33 places
Madrid	195	67%of 39 rated	57%of 44	58%114 places
Porto	189	82%of 33 rated	79%of 48	49%93 places
Valencia	188	77%of 30 rated	75%of 40	45%84 places

And the ability to stop. A coworking day pass is a sunk cost that makes you stay until you have got your money's worth. A coffee is not.

The arrangement most people end up at

A monthly coworking membership for the two or three days a week that have calls in them, and cafes for the rest. It costs less than five full days of either, and it puts the right day in the right room.

If you are not sure yet, start from the cafes: they are free to try, and a week of them will tell you exactly which days do not work.

Cafes in Madrid worth a full session

Café Viena

Moncloa - Aravaca · 4.6 · 5879

Wi-Fi

5/5

Outlets

many

Noise

not checked

The Little Big Cafe Fernández de Los Ríos

Chamberí · 4.6 · 1760

Wi-Fi

5/5

Outlets

none

Noise

varies

CAFE LATE

Tetuán · 4 · 1932

Wi-Fi

5/5

Outlets

not checked

Noise

quiet

Borges Café

Latina · 4.7 · 246

Wi-Fi

5/5

Outlets

not checked

Noise

varies

Café Green Bakery & Brunch.

Chamberí · 4.6 · 1240

Wi-Fi

5/5

Outlets

not checked

Noise

not checked

punto Kafé - Cafetería de Especialidad

Moncloa - Aravaca · 4.8 · 816

Wi-Fi

5/5

Outlets

a few

Noise

varies

Is coworking cheaper than working from cafes?

They are close. A cafe at the going rate of one order every ninety minutes costs about 1.50 to 2.50 euros an hour in most European cities; a coworking day pass at 15 to 25 euros over eight hours is similar, and a monthly hot desk spread over twenty days is cheaper per hour than both. Cost is rarely the deciding factor.

When is a cafe not good enough for remote work?

When the day has more than about two calls in it. You cannot control the noise of a room you do not own, and stepping outside for each call fragments the day. Days full of meetings belong in a coworking space or at home.

What is the main advantage of coworking over a cafe?

Storage and predictability. A desk lets you leave a monitor and a jacket rather than carrying everything twice a day, and it removes the variance of arriving to find the good seats taken. That predictability is worth paying for on days with a hard deadline and worth nothing on days with slack.

Can you mix coworking and cafes?

That is what most people settle on: a monthly membership used for the two or three days a week that carry calls, and cafes for the rest. It costs less than five full days of either and puts each kind of day in the room that suits it.