Ottawa Self Storage Rates: A Census-Wide Rate Survey
Ottawa Self Storage Rates:
A Census-Wide Rate Survey
Every storage facility in the Ottawa market, surveyed for advertised asking rates on the same day. This is not a sample of the big operators — it is the whole census, independents included, with each facility reported by ownership tier and submarket.
Asking rates by unit size
Median advertised monthly rate across every Ottawa facility that publishes a price for that size, with the middle half of the market (25th to 75th percentile) and the full range. Each figure counts facilities, not listings, so an operator with a long unit list cannot pull the median. Figures greyed out are drawn from fewer than 3 facilities and should be read as indicative only.
| Unit size | Typical use | Non-climate | Climate | Middle 50% (non-cl.) | Range (non-cl.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5×5 | closet / seasonal | $110n=10 | $108n=13 | $79 – $134 | $74 – $178 |
| 5×10 | one-bedroom | $123n=19 | $156n=19 | $83 – $169 | $50 – $217 |
| 10×10 | two-bedroom | $217n=19 | $235n=18 | $154 – $264 | $91 – $329 |
| 10×15 | three-bedroom | $243n=16 | $312n=11 | $194 – $310 | $125 – $386 |
| 10×20 | house / vehicle | $287n=14 | $415n=10 | $205 – $364 | $150 – $472 |
Rate per square foot, and the climate premium
Rate per square foot is the only fair way to compare across sizes: small units always cost far more per foot than large ones, which is why a facility’s unit mix matters as much as its headline rate.
| Unit size | $/sq ft non-climate | $/sq ft climate | Climate premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5×5 | $4.42 | $4.33 | -2.0% |
| 5×10 | $2.47 | $3.12 | +26.3% |
| 10×10 | $2.17 | $2.35 | +8.4% |
| 10×15 | $1.62 | $2.08 | +28.2% |
| 10×20 | $1.44 | $2.07 | +44.5% |
The climate-controlled figures leave out the market’s largest heated operator. Dymon Storage’s twelve Ottawa buildings are all heated, indoor space, and Dymon publishes no per-size prices, so the climate medians rest on Access Storage, U-Haul and the independents. Dymon sits at the premium end of the market, so if anything these climate figures run low.
At some sizes the climate-controlled median sits below the non-climate median. The two columns are drawn from partly different sets of facilities, so at a single size the gap can reflect which operators publish each product as much as a real price difference.
Where the market is, and what it charges
Submarket is assigned from each facility’s street address rather than its mailing city, which moves a number of sites out of the “Ottawa” catch-all their listings use.
| Submarket | Facilities | Share of market | Median 5×10 | Median 10×10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ottawa Central | 30 | 46% | $147n=12 | $250n=11 |
| West | 19 | 29% | $155n=10 | $221n=12 |
| South | 3 | 5% | — | — |
| East | 13 | 20% | $140n=7 | $217n=7 |
Who owns the market
Of the 65 storage facilities in the Ottawa market, 29 are independents, 1 belongs to a regional operator and 35 are owned by institutional platforms. That is an unusually consolidated market by Canadian standards, with the national platforms holding more of the stock than local owners.
| Ownership tier | Facilities | Share | Median 5×10 | Median 10×10 | Climate-controlled |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| InstitutionalREIT, national platform or public-company owned | 35 | 54% | $165n=21 | $259n=20 | 68%n=22 |
| Regional operatormulti-site operator within one province or region | 1 | 2% | $145n=1 | $205n=1 | 100%n=1 |
| Independentsingle-site, owner-operated | 29 | 45% | $94n=7 | $185n=9 | 50%n=10 |
Climate-controlled share is the share of rate-publishing facilities in that tier offering any heated unit — a product-mix signal, not a share of unit count.
Operators with more than one location
32 of the 65 facilities belong to an operator running more than one location in this market, and 29 are unbranded single sites; the balance are single locations of operators based elsewhere.
| Operator | Facilities | Share of market |
|---|---|---|
| Access Storage (StorageVault) | 13 | 20% |
| Dymon Storage | 12 | 18% |
| U-Haul | 4 | 6% |
| Mini Mall Storage | 3 | 5% |
At a population of 1,017,449 (Statistics Canada, 2021 Census – City of Ottawa), that is 6.4 facilities per 100,000 residents. Facility count is a coarser supply measure than rentable square feet, which is not published by most Canadian operators; treat it as a structural indicator, not a saturation test.
Discounting
18 of the 33 rate-publishing facilities are running a promotion, covering 56% of all advertised units, at a median discount of 50% off the street rate (deepest offer: 75%). A further 9 listings offer a free or token-priced ($1-style) rental period rather than a reduced rate; those are counted as a promotion here but left out of the discount depth, since a free month is not a lower rent. Canadian promotions are almost always time-limited teasers — a first month, or a fixed number of weeks — so the street rates above, not these offers, are what a tenant pays at renewal. The gap between the two is the more useful number: it is a direct read on how hard a market is working to fill space.
Against the national market
Compared with the median of JBW Commercial’s weekly national rate survey, which tracks a fixed facility panel in 33 Canadian markets. The national figure is equal-weighted by market, so no single city dominates it.
| Unit size | Type | Ottawa | National median | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5×5 | Non-climate | $110n=10 | $90 | +23% |
| 5×5 | Climate | $108n=13 | $94 | +15% |
| 5×10 | Non-climate | $123n=19 | $120 | +3% |
| 5×10 | Climate | $156n=19 | $145 | +8% |
| 10×10 | Non-climate | $217n=19 | $195 | +11% |
| 10×10 | Climate | $235n=18 | $220 | +7% |
| 10×15 | Non-climate | $243n=16 | $239 | +2% |
| 10×15 | Climate | $312n=11 | $295 | +6% |
| 10×20 | Non-climate | $287n=14 | $315 | -9% |
| 10×20 | Climate | $415n=10 | $370 | +12% |
How much of this market is actually visible
Rate transparency is itself a finding. Of the 65 storage facilities in the Ottawa market, 33 publish a rate online. The rest either quote by phone, have no website, or have not yet been surveyed — 1 facility is worked through on a rotation. Any rate survey that reports only what it could read — without saying what it could not — overstates its own coverage, so the full breakdown is below.
| Pricing disclosure | Facilities | Share | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Publishes per-size rates | 33 | 51% | Full unit-by-unit pricing online. |
| Publishes no pricing | 23 | 35% | A working listing that quotes by phone or enquiry only. |
| No website | 8 | 12% | The business has no website of its own to publish a price on. |
| Not yet surveyed | 1 | 2% | Queued for survey; no verdict recorded yet. |
33 facilities (51% of the market) published a rate at one or more of the five standard survey footprints and are the basis of every median on this page.
Method and caveats
- Duplicate listings. 10 census rows were second listings of a building already in the panel and were merged into it, so no facility is counted twice.
- Panel. Every facility in the Ottawa market recorded in JBW Commercial’s Canadian facility census, de-duplicated and verified. 6 container or RV/boat yards are counted in the market but excluded from every rate figure, since they do not rent conventional units.
- What is measured. Advertised online asking rates on the survey date — the street rate a new tenant would be quoted, not contract rents, and not what existing tenants pay after escalations. Where an operator lists several tiers of the same footprint, the median tier is recorded, never the cheapest.
- Billing cycles. Weekly and four-weekly advertised prices are converted to a true monthly figure (×4.333 and ×1.0833 respectively). A four-week price is not a monthly price, and treating it as one overstates a market by about 8%.
- Taxes and fees. Rates are as advertised. Some operators quote before HST and some include it; a minority bill a mandatory recurring administration fee on top. Where a facility states this, it is recorded, but cross-facility comparison carries some noise from it.
- “Starting at” pricing. A few operators advertise a band rather than a per-size rate, so the same price appears against more than one footprint (Access Storage – Nepean Merivale (174 Cleopatra Dr)). These are recorded as published and flagged rather than dropped, but they are a floor, not a true per-size asking rate.
- Sample sizes. Every median is reported with the number of facilities behind it. Figures from fewer than 3 facilities are greyed and should not be read as market rates.
- Sold-out units are excluded from medians: a posted price on a unit that cannot be rented is not an asking rate.
Figures are approximate and subject to revision. E.&O.E.
Need the facility-level detail?
This page reports the Ottawa market in aggregate. The underlying survey holds every facility, unit size and asking rate individually, and the same census-wide method can be run on any Canadian market for a feasibility study, an acquisition, or a rate benchmarking exercise.