What Storage Valet is, pricing, market opportunity, and unit economics
Storage Valet is a premium, white-glove storage concierge built for dense, high-income urban markets where space is scarce and convenience is highly valued. The service replaces traditional self-storage—an inconvenient, vehicle-dependent utility—with a planned, service-oriented model that prioritizes reliability, clarity, and trust.
SV picks up, catalogs, stores, and returns items as needed with a 48-hour lead time that encourages planned, reliable scheduling.
| Advantage | Description |
|---|---|
| Price Arbitrage | Lease low-cost storage on Hudson County perimeter; serve high-rent neighborhoods |
| Density Economics | Concentrate ops in luxury buildings to batch service days, reduce cost per stop |
| Inventory Layer | Item-level tracking + search makes stored goods usable, not buried |
Urban households face a structural mismatch: apartments are expensive per square foot, families accumulate "overflow" faster than apartments can expand, and traditional self-storage is inconvenient, vehicle-dependent, and time-intensive.
| Upgrade | Monthly Increase | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1BR → 2BR | +$805/month | +21.4% |
| 2BR → 3BR | +$1,626/month | +35.6% |
| Avg 1BR | $3,762/month | — |
SV at $299/month is positioned as the "cheaper-than-upsizing" alternative.
$299/month, single plan — No setup fee (eliminated for simplicity). 14-day complimentary trial on all new subscriptions.
Customers use the trial period to explore the portal, create their digital inventory, and schedule their first pickup before billing begins.
| Scenario | Policy |
|---|---|
| High-volume households | Add an additional $299 subscription (simple, consistent) |
| Special handling / exclusions | Oversized furniture, hazardous items, high-value categories without declared value |
| Scheduling standard | Retrievals and returns as needed with 48-hour lead time (bookable far in advance) |
| ZIP | Primary City | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 07002 | Bayonne | Standard delivery |
| 07032 | Kearny | Standard delivery |
Revenue: $299/month
| Cost Category | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Processing | $9 | $9 |
| Ops cost per pickup/return | $25 | $55 |
| Storage rent allocation | $8 | $20 |
| Consumables/depreciation | $5 | $15 |
| Claims reserve | $3 | $8 |
| Total Variable | ~$50 | ~$105 |
| Contribution Margin | ~$194 | ~$249 |
| Margin % | 65% | 83% |
| Metric | Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Contribution Margin | $200–$250/month | — |
| Customer Lifetime | 18–30 months | — |
| LTV | $3,600–$7,500 | — |
| CAC | $250–$700 | Building partnerships vs. paid |
| CAC:LTV | 5×–30× | — |
| Payback | 1–3 months | — |
Golden Ratio = (Revenue per sqft leased) ÷ (Cost per sqft leased)
Facility example: 10'×28' unit = 280 sqft @ ~$400/month → $1.43/sqft/month
| Customers | Revenue/sqft | Golden Ratio |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | $7.12/sqft/mo | ~5.0× |
| 50 | $17.80/sqft/mo | ~12.4× |
| 100 | $35.60/sqft/mo | ~24.9× |
Storage rent is a small input; scaling constraint is operational density + scheduling discipline.
Hudson County, NJ — Hoboken and adjacent Gold Coast cities across 13 serviceable ZIP codes.
"Renters first because of distribution efficiency; homeowners broaden TAM and strengthen retention and LTV."
Logistically adjacent, high-rent markets reachable from NJ perimeter storage:
| Coverage | Recommended Limit |
|---|---|
| General Liability | $1M per occurrence / $2M aggregate |
| Commercial Auto | $1M CSL |
| Hired/Non-Owned Auto | $1M |
| Motor Truck Cargo (in transit) | $100k–$250k per vehicle |
| Warehouse/Bailee's Liability | $250k–$1M+ per location |
| Umbrella/Excess | $1M–$3M |
| Workers' Comp | Statutory (NJ) |
| Cyber / Tech E&O | $250k–$1M |
| Crime / Dishonesty | $25k–$100k |
| Metric | Definition |
|---|---|
| CUM | Containers Under Management |
| IUM | Items Under Management |
| DVUM | Declared Value Under Management |
| Retrieval frequency | p50/p90 per customer/month |
| Storage utilization | % of leased capacity in use |
| Customer retention | Monthly/annual churn rate |
| Milestone | Target | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| First 20 customers | — | Validates $299 willingness-to-pay |
| Founder salary + growth | TBD customer count | Self-funded 30–40% YoY growth |
| Contribution margin positive | Per-customer | Unit economics proven |
| Risk | Mitigation |
|---|---|
| Flat plan overuse | Policy guardrails + batching + additional subscription for high-volume |
| Loss/damage trust | Documentation, chain-of-custody, clear protection policy, proper coverage |
| Operational scaling | Building density first, SOPs, inventory system, scheduling discipline |
| Brand differentiation | Premium service + inventory layer; avoid commodity "space rental" framing |
These approaches were evaluated and explicitly rejected: