The Disappearing Day Pass
How coworking’s most flexible offer is being repackaged.
As a self-proclaimed ‘coworking nomad,’ I rarely work in the same space every day. My work takes me from one side of London to the other, and in between, I’ll organise the odd coworking day with friends.
That kind of movement is made possible by day passes: flexible, no-strings access that lets you choose a workspace based on geography, mood, or who you’re meeting, rather than committing to a monthly contract.
Day passes also provide one of the best ways to test out spaces when you’re shopping around for a longer-term base.
When I first moved to the city four years ago, there seemed to be an abundance of coworking spaces offering affordable day passes. But in the past couple of years, I’ve noticed a shift: day pass prices have risen sharply, and in some cases, the traditional standalone day-pass option seems to be disappearing.
Are day passes gone for good, or are they evolving? Let’s take a closer look at what happened to coworking’s most flexible offer.
Repackaging the coworking day pass
Day passes were once a standard entry point into coworking. What would typically cost between £15 and £25 for day passes at some independent coworking spaces and bigger chains in London, a few years ago, has now increased quite significantly.
I reviewed current published pricing across several London coworking operators to see whether my impression matched reality.
Let’s take a day pass at Work.Life as an example, which costs a pricey £60 with VAT. Work.Life introduced day passes last year to replace its pay-by-the-hour offer. Although hourly coworking didn’t come cheap, I liked how it supported flexible access to coworking. It also required a one-off sign-up fee, which could be viewed as a light membership to the workspace.
Other London-based coworking chains offer slightly lower pricing:
A day pass at Second Home costs £42 (including VAT).
Day passes at Huckletree costs £35 (excluding VAT).
Even The Hearth, an independent women’s space in Queens Park, offers a half-day pass for £20 (excluding VAT), but the hours are strictly within a morning slot or afternoon slot with specific times.
I like to pop into a coworking space if there’s one close to a client's office or to meet friends for a few hours of coworking. At these higher prices, it doesn’t make sense for me to buy one without planning a very productive and full work day.
But you could say that these workspaces aren’t for freelancers like me. After all, everyone has different requirements from a coworking space.
Why operators pulled back
Community is the real value of coworking, but day-pass users can’t access that value easily, and it feels risky to pay a high day rate without knowing if the day will be friendly or welcoming.
On the operator side, it’s uncertain how a visitor may interact with the community or contribute to it. As Georgi Aleksiev says, in a recent Cobot article on the topic:
The problem with day passes (or half-day or hourly passes) is that they eliminate the need for a membership. With membership comes a sense of shared identity and ownership; as the day passes, people never really belong to the community. From a business and a community point of view, this is not desirable.
Georgi’s point made me think back to when I was a member of a coworking space in Islington. The workspace frequently offered generous deals like first-time freebies and a Freelancer Friday initiative – opening the coworking space to anyone claiming to be a freelancer.
Once their quietest day, Fridays got so full that on occasions, it ran out of room for members. The thing was, everyone invited friends who had no intention of joining the workspace, but who benefitted from a free professional workspace every single week. After a couple of months, management paused the initiative indefinitely.
Freelancer Friday was replaced by a ‘Five Days for £5’ offer. In theory, it allowed coworkers to come into the space on five consecutive days, but the team were quite lenient about access, allowing people to spread their days out over a couple of weeks on a trust-based protocol.
The problem with all the above is that the coworking space devalued its product, opening its doors to people who took advantage of the generous access to space. It’s no wonder that fewer independent coworking spaces now offer free trial days, especially with all the additional cost challenges operators face.
A workable middle ground
Extreme generosity clearly isn’t sustainable, but removing accessible entry points altogether may not be the answer either. For independent coworking spaces, especially, the challenge is finding a middle ground between protecting your space’s value and lowering the entry threshold to first-time use.
Trial access still matters. Before joining the Islington workspace, I used a free trial pass and then an aggregator platform to test the coworking space before committing to a membership. Those trials helped me make a better decision and avoid repeating a previous mistake where I joined a different space too quickly and left after a couple of months.
Eliminating day passes creates a barrier for lead generation. Instead of getting rid of them, operators can consider restructuring day passes so they make sense financially, and for the benefit of the community.
Some operators are landing on more balanced models: day pass bundles, specific validity windows, and pricing that rewards repeat use without undercutting memberships. This can also help qualify leads.
One example is x+why’s bundle model — a reasonably priced day pass at £30 (including VAT) or multi-day bundles that lower the per-day cost to £14.8 (excluding VAT). The 10-day bundle offers a more membership-style commitment to the coworking space, giving occasional users a fairer rate while still creating predictable revenue for the space.
I’ve also seen this approach outside London. Last year, I spoke with Darren Epstein, founder of Roamwork in Cape Town. Darren explained that they don’t focus on single-day passes, only multi-day bundles, starting at five passes with a three-month validity window. That structure works particularly well for visiting digital nomads: enough flexibility to be useful, enough commitment to be meaningful.
Personally, I find this model compelling. If I like a space and if it’s productive, welcoming, and well-located, I’ll come back. A bundle with a reasonable expiry period gives room to build that relationship without forcing an immediate full decision about membership.
The day pass is different now
Ultimately, the most effective day pass today might not be a day pass at all but a thoughtfully designed way for people to try your space before committing.
The opportunity now isn’t to bring back the old £20 day pass everywhere but to design smarter, fairer ways for people to try a space without devaluing it. Bundles with realistic expiry windows, credited trial days, and limited but intentional access feel like the real middle ground.
I’d love to hear what your approach to day passes looks like.
Until next time,
Lucy
Meet me at Unreasonable Connection
On Tuesday, I’m attending Unreasonable Connection Live! – a one-day event bringing 150 people together, who care deeply about the coworking industry, for a day packed full of honest conversations and knowledge exchange.
We’ll also be checking out Blue Garage, the host venue and one of Lewisham’s newest neighbourhood makerspaces. The event is organised by the London Coworking Assembly in partnership with Urban MBA.
Come and join us next week – grab your ticket now!