Packhood Research · Methodology · CC-BY 4.0
How we compute the State of Storage
The reference document for every number in the State of Storage report. It states exactly where each figure comes from, how we sample it, and how the savings are calculated — so you can attribute a Packhood number with confidence.
Version 2026-06-01 · Updated quarterly
Honesty note: Packhood is pre-launch
Packhood is a new marketplace and does not yet have a base of completed bookings. This report therefore contains estimates composited from real, public sources — it does not present scraped user data, and it does not invent platform metrics. Wherever a figure is an estimate, we say so. The aim is a transparent, reproducible price comparison, not a claim about realised transactions.
1. What we measure
A single, fixed reference unit: a 50 sq ft (~14 m³) equivalent. This is the most-quoted self-storage size, roughly the overflow of a one-bed flat, and close to the usable volume of a typical hosted garage or box room. Holding the volume constant keeps the commercial-vs-peer-to-peer comparison like-for-like across every city.
We track 15 cities across 3 markets (Ireland, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands).
2. Commercial self-storage figures
For each city we sample the published rate cards of the major self-storage operators serving that city and record the price of the reference unit. We publish a min–max range internally and show its midpoint in the headline table — never a single operator's promotional price, because rate cards vary by branch, availability and introductory offers.
- United Kingdom: Big Yellow, Safestore, Shurgard, Lok’nStore (branch rate cards).
- Netherlands: Shurgard, City Box and national self-storage operators.
- Ireland: the leading Dublin, Cork and Galway self-storage operators.
Sampled Q2 2026. Operator names are used only to identify the public price sources; no affiliation or endorsement is implied.
3. Peer-to-peer (Packhood) figures
The peer-to-peer column is Packhood's published reference rate card for hosted space of the equivalent volume. Because the marketplace is pre-launch, these are indicative list prices — what a host would reasonably list at — not realised bookings.
The rate card is anchored to residential rent references so it tracks the real local cost of space: Daft.ie (Ireland), Rightmove (United Kingdom) and Funda / CBS (Netherlands). We convert a city's residential €/£ per m² of dwelling space into a per-m³ storage-equivalent rate, then price the reference unit from it. The host receives 95% of the listed amount (Packhood takes a 5% host commission); renters pay a 20% service fee on top.
4. How the savings are calculated
For each city, on the reference unit:
monthly saving = commercial monthly − Packhood monthly saving % = monthly saving ÷ commercial monthly (rounded to a whole %) annual saving = monthly saving × 12
The single headline figure (54%) is the median of the per-city saving percentages — the median, not the mean, so one outlier city can't skew it. Country-level "typical saving" is the average of the saving percentages within that market.
5. Limitations
- Estimates, not realised bookings — the marketplace is pre-launch.
- Commercial rate cards change frequently; we re-sample each quarter and version by date.
- Peer-to-peer and commercial storage are not identical products — commercial units typically offer 24/7 access, while hosted space is usually accessed at agreed windows. The comparison is on price for equivalent volume, not on access or service.
- Currency is shown per market (€ for IE/NL, £ for UK); we do not convert between currencies.
Cite & reuse
All figures are open under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0). Cite as:
Packhood Research, “State of Storage — Q2 2026”, packhood.com/state-of-storage. Released under CC-BY 4.0.
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Methodology questions: press@packhood.com.