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Gate code and lockout workload calculator
Add up the hours your office spends issuing codes, clearing codes, and locking out past due units, then see what that quiet work costs across a year.
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Self storage rate increase calculator
Estimate what an existing customer rate increase actually nets after the tenants it pushes out and the weeks their units sit empty.
The gap between your street rate and what a tenant who moved in four years ago still pays is where most of the missing revenue at a small facility sits. Closing it is the single highest return action available to an independent owner, and it costs nothing but postage and nerve. The reason owners hesitate is that the downside is vivid and the upside is abstract: you can picture a row of move outs, but not the twelve months of extra rent from everybody who stayed.
This calculator makes both sides visible at once. Enter how many units you have occupied, what those tenants pay now, how much of the roster you plan to notice, and how big the increase is. Then enter an honest move out share and how long a vacated unit takes to fill at your property. The output shows the monthly lift, the vacancy cost of the departures, and the net effect over the first year.
Your result
Units receiving a notice
99
The size of the mailing this increase actually creates.
Added rent per month after move outs
$771
Rent added every month by the noticed tenants who accept the new rate and stay.
Vacancy cost of the tenants who leave
$828
Rent lost while the vacated units sit empty before they re-rent.
Year one net effect
$8,418
Twelve months of added rent minus the vacancy those move outs cost you.
This is deliberately conservative, because it does not credit you for re-renting the vacated units at your current street rate, which usually turns a portion of those move outs into a gain.
Why the conservative number is the useful one
Every vacated unit at a healthy facility eventually re-rents, and it re-rents at today's street rate rather than the rate a tenant locked in years ago. That means a move out caused by a rate increase is often a rate reset in disguise. This calculator ignores that upside on purpose, so the number you look at is the floor rather than the ceiling.
If the floor is already positive at your inputs, the decision is made. If it is close to zero, look at your vacancy months figure first, because that input swings the result more than anything else. A property that fills a 10 by 10 in three weeks is in a completely different position from one where the same unit sits through a winter.
How to stage the mailing so the number holds
Do not notice the whole roster at once. Take the longest tenured band first, typically tenants past eighteen months who are furthest below street rate, and run that group through a full cycle before you touch the next band. You will get a real move out percentage from your own property instead of an estimate, and you can put it straight back into this calculator.
Give tenants enough notice to comply with your rental agreement and your state's requirements, and send it the same way every time so the record is consistent. Then watch the gate. A tenant who is unhappy about a new rate but keeps using their code is a tenant who is staying, and that signal usually shows up before any phone call does.
Questions about this calculator
What move out percentage should I enter if I have never done this?
Start with the default and treat it as a stand in until you have your own data. Owners who notice long tenured tenants with a single digit increase typically see a modest share leave, but the range across markets is wide. Run one band, count the actual departures, then come back and enter the real number.
Should I increase everyone or just long tenured tenants?
Tenure banding is the standard approach because the largest gap between billed rate and street rate sits with the oldest tenants. It also keeps recent move ins from getting an increase weeks after signing, which is the fastest way to earn a complaint and a poor review.
Does the calculator account for units re-renting at street rate?
No, and that omission is intentional. Adding it would require assumptions about your street rate and fill time that vary too much by market to model honestly here. Treat the year one net figure as a conservative floor rather than a forecast.
More free tools and working documents
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The self storage delinquency ladder worksheet
A fill in worksheet that turns your rental agreement and your state statute into a dated ladder your property can actually run every single month.
Take that result to your own rent roll
The figure above came out of your inputs, not out of a claim of ours, so the next step is checking it against real paid through dates. In a demo we load a slice of your units and show what one billing cycle does to that number when the notices, the code issuance and the overlock rung all run on schedule. Twenty minutes, starting from whatever is on your screen right now.