4 office spaces for rent in Melbourne at Stone & Chalk

The figure is all-in: rent, outgoings, utilities, internet, furniture, cleaning, security and reception on one monthly agreement, so a team of ten budgets roughly ten times the per-desk rate and receives no separate bills. Figures come from live listings and refresh weekly.

No, which surprises people. The cheaper end is north of the CBD: Carlton at around $600, Fitzroy at around $630 and Collingwood at $650, each a ten to fifteen minute tram ride from the centre.

Carlton, at around $600 a desk, is the cheapest area within a tram ride of the city, followed by Fitzroy and Collingwood. All three are converted warehouse and terrace stock with a creative and university crowd rather than corporate towers, which suits some teams and not others. If you want a tower and a tram to the door, Southbank at $800 matches the CBD rate with easier parking and the river in between. The saving against Docklands is several hundred dollars a desk a month whichever you choose.

Anything from one desk to a floor for three hundred people, which is the widest range of any Australian city. The CBD alone carries 3,477 desks across around 320 listings, so a founder taking one room and a company moving a hundred people are looking at the same buildings. Rates fall per desk as offices get larger: a suite for one to four desks prices close to the median, while whole floors for fifty or more come in below it. The practical effect is that you should not settle: on any given week there are usually several genuine options at your size and budget within a few blocks of each other, which is what makes the rate negotiable.

Effectively everything except your own phone and IT choices. The monthly fee normally covers rent, outgoings, utilities, high speed internet, furniture, cleaning, building security, a staffed reception, and shared kitchens and breakout space. Across the offices listed in Victoria, 94% come furnished, 90% are air conditioned, 85% include meeting rooms and 85% offer 24 hour access; 47% offer private parking, the highest share of any mainland state, mostly in the fringe suburbs. What to check before you sign: the meeting room allowance, printing, whether IT support and phone lines are extra, and the security deposit, which is typically one to two months. Every Rubberdesk listing shows what a building includes, so you can compare two quotes on the same basis.

It comes down to headcount and how long you can commit. A serviced office is a fitted, furnished room inside an operator's building, let per desk on a monthly agreement with the reception, meeting rooms and kitchens shared: right for teams of one to about twenty who want to move fast and keep the option to grow or shrink. A managed office is a whole floor or self-contained suite fitted out to your brief and run for you, priced per floor on a two or three year term: right for teams of twenty upwards who want their own front door without a conventional lease. Melbourne's CBD and Docklands hold most of the managed floors in Victoria, and the fringe suburbs are almost entirely serviced.

Days rather than weeks. The room is already furnished, wired and staffed, so the agreement and the deposit are usually the only delay, and a week or two is typical. Managed offices, where an operator fits a floor out to your specification, take four to twelve weeks. Coworking desks, at a median of $550 a month in the CBD, can usually be started the same week and are the quickest way to get a small team working while a private office is arranged. If you need to be in by a particular date, say so at the outset and we will shortlist only buildings that can meet it. There is no charge to you.