Free options and what they are worth
There are genuinely free ways to advertise a commercial unit, and they are worth doing - as extras:
- A board on the unit. Still the single most cost-effective local channel for workshops, yards and shops. Anyone who drives past or works nearby sees it.
- Telling the neighbours. Businesses on the same estate or street are the likeliest to expand into your unit, and it costs a conversation.
- General classifieds and social marketplaces. Free to post, but businesses searching for premises rarely start there, there are no commercial filters (size, use class, lease terms), and enquiries skew towards the speculative.
- Your own website or LinkedIn. Useful if you already have an audience; invisible if you do not.
The weakness they share is reach to the right people. A business that needs 2,000 sq ft of industrial space in Derby is searching a commercial property site or Google, not a classifieds app. Free channels catch the tenant who happens past; they do not find the one who is looking.
Flat-fee commercial portals
The cheapest paid route - and for most units the cheapest effective route - is a flat-fee commercial listing site. You pay a subscription while the unit is advertised and nothing when it lets. On Boxpod that is £12 a month for one listing, £25 for up to five and £45 for up to ten, roughly 20% less if you pay annually, cancel anytime; the unit appears in tenant searches on the site and on listing pages built to rank in Google for "type to let in town" searches, and enquiries come straight to you.
Three months' advertising on the Lite plan is £36. Even a slow let - six months - is £72. There is no scenario in which the flat fee approaches what a percentage fee costs on the same unit.
Agent marketing packages
Agents will advertise the unit for you, but "advertising" is bundled into a letting fee on success - typically around 10% of the first year's rent plus VAT, often with a minimum fee - and many also charge marketing or set-up costs separately, payable whether or not the unit lets. Some offer a marketing-only package without the letting fee; it tends to be priced in the hundreds of pounds and you still handle the let. If you are considering an agent mainly for advertising, what commercial letting agents charge sets out the full picture.
Cost per month vs cost per let
The mistake landlords make is comparing headline numbers in different units - a monthly subscription against a percentage on success - without putting them on the same unit. Put them on the same unit and the picture is stark. Take a workshop let at £15,000 a year:
- Flat fee on Boxpod, three months to let: £36. Six months: £72.
- Agent at 10% plus £500 marketing: around £2,400 including VAT, plus any management fee after.
- Free classifieds: £0, but with a real chance the unit takes months longer to let - and an empty unit costs you the rent every month it stands empty, which on this unit is £1,250 a month.
That last line is the one to remember. The cheapest way to advertise is the one that lets the unit fastest at a sensible price - so "cheapest" should include the cost of the void. That is why the answer for most landlords is a small flat fee on a site businesses actually search, with the free channels as back-up.