Guides · Floor Plan Measurement
Whether pricing a single-family rental, a condo, or a small commercial space, accurate square footage is the foundation of correct lease pricing. An extra 100 sq ft you didn't know about at $2.50/sq ft/month is $3,000 per year in unrealized rent. Here's how to get the number right.
Residential landlords set rents partly from comparable units by size. If your unit is 820 sq ft but listed as 900 sq ft, you're competing with genuine 900 sq ft units on $/sq ft metrics, and may be losing tenants. Commercial leases price even more directly: monthly rent = rentable area × $/sq ft rate. A 50 sq ft measurement error at $25/sq ft/month = $1,250/month in wrong charges or lost rent.
For residential rentals measure the interior net area: wall-to-wall. Tenants think of square footage as the space they can use, not including wall thickness. Interior measurement is what most rental comps report. Upload your floor plan to MeasureFloorPlan.com, trace the interior perimeter (inside faces of perimeter walls), set scale from any labeled dimension, and read the area.
Include: All finished, conditioned living space within the unit perimeter: bedrooms, living areas, kitchen, bathrooms, hallways, closets. Exclude: Private garage (separate amenity), storage rooms outside the unit boundary, balcony/patio (report separately), unfinished basement.
Usable area: Space the tenant occupies exclusively: their office, retail floor, private storage. What the tenant can put furniture in. Rentable area: Usable area plus the tenant's proportionate share of common areas (lobby, corridors, restrooms, mechanical rooms). Tenants pay rent on rentable area under most commercial leases. For a single-tenant building usable area = rentable area (no common areas to allocate). For multi-tenant buildings BOMA standards define how to allocate common areas across tenants.
Many photographers offer CubiCasa or Matterport scanning for $100–$200. The resulting floor plan becomes your authoritative measurement source: useful both for lease pricing and as a marketing asset for tenant listings.
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Upload your floor plan and trace square footage in any browser: no software required.
Start Measuring →Does square footage actually affect rent pricing?
Yes, especially in markets where price-per-square-foot is the primary benchmark. A 100 square foot underreport on a unit renting at $2.00 per square foot is $200 per month, or $2,400 per year, in lost rent.
What is rentable area vs usable area?
Usable area is the actual interior space the tenant occupies. Rentable area can include a share of common spaces (lobbies, hallways, mechanical rooms) in commercial leases. For residential, the two are usually the same. Always specify which standard your listing uses.
How do I measure rentable area from a floor plan?
Trace the exterior perimeter of each unit, then optionally add the unit's allocated share of common areas if your lease structure includes them. The tool returns each unit's area, and you can sum them for the building.
What's the right measurement standard for residential rentals?
Most U.S. residential leases use interior wall-to-wall measurement (which roughly matches ANSI Z765 GLA when basements and unheated spaces are excluded). Always document your method in the lease and on the listing.
Should I verify a property's square footage before buying it as a rental?
Yes. MLS square footage is often inflated. An independent measurement before purchase prevents overpaying and helps set realistic rent expectations from the start.