Storage pricing has a reputation for being slippery — introductory rates that jump, admin fees, compulsory insurance. Here's ours in full, with nothing held back for later.
At SOS Storage a 5ft container is £96 a month, a 10ft container is £125 a month, a 20ft container is £180 a month, and an outdoor hardstanding pitch for a caravan, motorhome, boat or trailer is £120 a month. All four prices include VAT and the padlock. There is a £50 refundable deposit and a three-month minimum stay. There is no admin fee, no compulsory insurance charge and no introductory rate that jumps after two months. You pay by bank transfer or cash on the day you move in.
The padlock is included — you don't buy one, and you keep the only key. Access is included, every day of the year from 7:30am to 8:30pm, with no per-visit charge and no booking system to work around.
Security is included rather than sold as an upgrade: the yard is fully fenced with a gated entrance, it's floodlit, and there's 24/7 CCTV across the site.
Business customers get VAT-receipted invoices as standard, so storage drops straight into your bookkeeping as a clean expense.
Insurance. We strongly recommend insuring whatever you store, but we don't force a policy on you and we don't take a commission on one. Many household and vehicle policies already extend to goods kept off-site — it's worth a phone call to your insurer before you pay for anything additional.
Electricity. These are steel containers on a secure yard, not powered units. There's no socket inside, which is worth knowing if you were planning to run a freezer or charge tools.
Packing materials and transport. We're a storage yard rather than a removals firm, so boxes and a van are down to you.
A national indoor self-storage chain is running a heated, lit building with lifts, trolleys, staffed reception and a security desk, and the price reflects all of it. You're paying for the building as much as the space.
A container on a secure yard strips that back to what most people actually need: dry, weatherproof, secure space you can drive right up to. No lift, no corridor, no trolley, no queueing for the goods lift behind someone moving a wardrobe.
That's why customers regularly tell us we came in at a fraction of what the big chains quoted for equivalent space. It's not a discount — it's a different product.
Size. The single biggest factor, and the easiest one to get wrong. Paying for a 20ft when a 10ft would do is £55 a month you didn't need to spend; taking a 10ft when you needed a 20ft usually costs more in the end. Our size guide walks through it.
How long you stay. Standard rates assume a three-month minimum. We can do shorter at a slightly different rate — just ask rather than assuming we can't.
How many units. Trade customers taking more than one unit, or committing longer-term, should talk to us. There's room to move and we'd rather keep a good long-term customer than squeeze a monthly rate.
Pack properly. Most people could fit into a size smaller than they book, simply by boxing things into consistent sizes and stacking rather than piling. Uniform boxes stack; carrier bags and odd-shaped crates don't.
Dismantle the bulky things. Bed frames, table legs and flat-pack furniture take a fraction of the space in pieces, and it's twenty minutes' work.
Be honest about what you're actually going to want again. A surprising amount of what goes into storage never comes out. Paying £125 a month for eighteen months to keep something you'd replace for £200 isn't storage, it's postponement.