Australia's Coworking Guide: Spaces, Costs and How to Choose

A coworking space is a shared office where individuals and small teams rent a desk, or a private office, by the month rather than leasing a floor. You get a furnished workspace, fast internet, meeting rooms, a kitchen and a community of other businesses in one monthly membership, and you can start the day you sign up.

Rubberdesk lists every coworking space in Australia, from WeWork, IWG and Hub Australia to the independents in each city, with live availability and prices, and the service is free. Tell us how many desks you need and where, and we will send a shortlist that fits. Get a free shortlist or search coworking spaces in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

• What is a coworking space?
• Hot desk, dedicated desk or private office?
• Coworking, serviced office, managed office or home?
• Who coworking suits
• What does a coworking desk cost?
• How to choose a coworking space
• Types of coworking operator
• How Rubberdesk helps
• Top coworking locations
• Coworking guides and comparisons

What is a coworking space?

A coworking space is a building, or a floor of one, run by an operator who rents workspace to many businesses at once. The open plan desks are shared; the meeting rooms, kitchens, phone booths and breakout areas are shared; and most operators also rent lockable private offices for teams that want their own room with the shared facilities around it. You pay per desk per month on a rolling or fixed term membership, with no lease, no fit-out and no separate bills.

Coworking has been part of the Australian market since the mid 2000s and most new office towers now carry at least one flexible floor. The operators range from global networks to a single floor above a cafe, and the choice in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane is as wide as anywhere outside the US.

What you get with a coworking membership

• A desk and chair, with lockable storage on dedicated plans
• High speed internet and Wi-Fi
• Meeting rooms, usually with a monthly credit allowance
• Kitchen, coffee and breakout space, and phone booths for calls
• Reception, mail handling and a business address
• Printing, usually with an allowance
• Events, a members' network and usually end of trip facilities
• 24 hour access on most monthly plans

Hot desk, dedicated desk or private office?

Most operators sell three kinds of membership. Which one you need depends on how often you come in and how much privacy your work needs.

Membership	What you get	Suits
Hot desk	Any free desk in the shared area, first come first served. Sold monthly, or as day passes and part time plans	Freelancers, remote workers and anyone in two or three days a week
Dedicated desk	Your own desk in the shared area, left set up with your screen and storage	Sole traders and pairs who are in most days
Private office	A lockable room for your team inside the coworking space, with the shared facilities around it	Teams of 2 to 20 who need privacy or a fixed address

Beyond about ten desks a private office in a coworking space and a serviced office are the same product, and the operators overlap. At that size compare both.

Coworking, serviced office, managed office or home?

Option	What you get	Term	Suits
Coworking desk	A hot desk or dedicated desk in a shared, open plan space	Monthly	Individuals and very small teams
Serviced office	A private, furnished office with shared reception, meeting rooms and kitchens, all inclusive per desk	3 to 24 months	Teams of 2 to 50 who want their own room and a quick move
Managed office	A whole floor or building fitted out for you and run by an operator, with private facilities	1 to 5 years	Teams of 20 to 200 who want their own front door without a lease
Working from home	No cost and no commute, and no separation between work and home, no meeting rooms and no colleagues	None	Anyone who can, some of the time

Most coworking members are also working from home part of the week. The question is usually not coworking or home but how many days of each. For a fuller comparison see our guide to coworking versus serviced offices.

Who coworking suits

• Freelancers, consultants and contractors who want a professional base and other people around them
• Start-ups and small teams that expect to grow and do not want to guess their headcount two years out
• Remote and hybrid staff of larger companies, whose employer pays for a desk near home
• Agencies, which tend to value the community and events
• Law firms and other professional firms in the private offices, where the shared reception and meeting rooms do the front of house
• Project teams, regional outposts of larger companies and the Australian base of overseas businesses

What does a coworking desk cost?

Coworking is priced per desk per month, and the figures below come from live listings on Rubberdesk and update weekly.

• In the Sydney CBD the median coworking desk is $500 a month, against $879 a desk for a private office
• Across Australia the median private office is $663 a desk, with Melbourne's CBD at $620 and Brisbane at $700, and coworking desks well below those
• Hot desks cost less than dedicated desks at the same space, typically by a quarter to a third, and day passes run from about $30 to $60

Prices as at October 2026 and exclude GST. Most memberships are monthly, and a 6 or 12 month commitment usually earns a discount. For a city by city breakdown see our price guides:

• Australian office price guide
• Sydney price guide
• Melbourne price guide
• Brisbane price guide
• Perth price guide
• Adelaide price guide
• Canberra price guide

How to choose a coworking space

Visit two or three before you decide, at the time of day you would normally be there. Noise, light and how full the shared area is tell you more than a tour at 10am on a Tuesday.

• Commute: walking time from the station, and whether there are other locations you can use on the same membership
• Desk or office: whether a shared desk will work for the calls you take, or you need a private room
• Meeting rooms: how many, how booked up they are, and what your credit allowance covers
• Internet and IT: dedicated bandwidth, a private network if you need one, and what happens when it goes down
• Access and security: 24 hour access, whether guests can be signed in, and locker or storage space
• Community: whether the events, introductions and members' network matter to you, or whether you want quiet
• Term and exit: notice period, deposit and whether the rate rises on renewal
• Total cost: what the membership includes, what is extra, and what the same desk costs on a longer term

Not sure where to start? Tell us what you need and we will narrow the market down to a shortlist worth visiting.

Types of coworking operator

Hundreds of operators run coworking spaces in Australia. They fall into a few groups, and the right one depends on whether you want a network of locations, a particular suburb or a particular crowd.

• Global networks: WeWork, IWG (Regus and Spaces), JustCo and The Executive Centre give one membership access to buildings in every capital and overseas, which suits teams spread across cities or travelling staff.
• National chains: Hub Australia, Servcorp, Christie Spaces, Workspace365 and WOTSO run sites in several capitals, each with its own style, from premium CBD floors to suburban hubs.
• Independents and boutiques: single site or single city operators such as The Commons, where the building and the founder set the tone and the community is the point.
• Landlord flex: office landlords running their own flexible floors in their towers, often with the option to grow into a managed floor in the same building.
• Sector hubs and incubators: spaces built around tech, creative, science or social enterprise tenants, with mentoring and events as part of the offer. They tend to be selective about members and good value if you fit.

The operator directory lists every one with their current spaces. Our head to head comparisons:

• WeWork vs Regus
• Hub Australia vs WeWork
• Hub Australia vs Regus
• Servcorp vs Hub Australia
• WeWork vs Servcorp

How Rubberdesk helps

Rubberdesk is a flexible office marketplace and advisory service. Every coworking space, serviced office and managed office in Australia is listed on the platform with live availability and pricing, so you can compare the whole market in one place.

1. Tell us what you need. Desks or an office, areas you would consider, budget and start date. A phone call or the form on this page is enough.
2. We send a shortlist. Our team knows the buildings and the operators, and comes back with the spaces that fit, usually within a day.
3. We arrange inspections and negotiate. We book the tours, chase the paperwork and negotiate the rate and terms on your behalf.

The service is free to you and we are impartial: operators pay us when you move in, and we recommend the right space rather than the one that pays most. Call us on 1300 433 757 or get started online.

Top coworking locations

Start with a location and then narrow the search by desks and budget.

• Sydney Coworking
• Melbourne Coworking
• Brisbane Coworking
• Perth Coworking
• Adelaide Coworking
• Canberra Coworking
• North Sydney Coworking
• Surry Hills Coworking
• Parramatta Coworking

Frequently asked questions

What is a coworking space?

A coworking space is a shared office run by an operator, where individuals and small teams rent a hot desk, a dedicated desk or a private office by the month. Internet, meeting rooms, kitchens and a members' community are included in the membership.

How much does a coworking desk cost in Australia?

The median coworking desk in the Sydney CBD is $500 per month on live Rubberdesk listings, against $879 per desk for a private office. Prices as at October 2026 and exclude GST.

What is the difference between coworking and a serviced office?

Coworking is a desk in a shared, open plan space on a monthly membership. A serviced office is a private, lockable room for your team on a 3 to 24 month agreement, with the same shared reception, meeting rooms and kitchens around it. Beyond about ten desks the two overlap and most operators sell both.

Can I rent a coworking desk by the day?

Yes. Most operators sell day passes and part time plans alongside monthly hot desk memberships, typically for about $30 to $60 a day in the capital city CBDs. A monthly membership works out cheaper from about two days a week.

How do I find a coworking space?

Rubberdesk lists every coworking space in Australia with live availability and pricing, and the service is free. Tell us how many desks you need, where and from when, and we send a shortlist of spaces that fit and arrange the inspections.

Coworking guides and comparisons

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