Cost Allocation by Square Footage Calculator
Enter the total cost, the unit's area and the total area to allocate the cost by square footage.
Result
How it is calculated
The tool splits one shared bill in proportion to floor area. share = unit area ÷ total area, allocated cost = total cost × share, and cost per sq ft = total cost ÷ total area. The share is shown as a percentage and the money amounts are printed with a dollar sign, with no currency conversion. Areas are in square feet. Because the share is a ratio, square metres give the same split as long as both areas use the same unit, but the per-area figure is then per square metre even though it is labelled sq ft. The total area must be at least as large as the unit's area, otherwise there is no result; areas must be above zero. The total cost may be zero (everything allocates as $0.00) but not negative. The method ignores how intensely each unit uses the service, so every unit pays the same per square foot.
Worked example
A building's shared costs for the year are $18,000, the building has 12,500 sq ft of leasable space, and your unit is 850 sq ft. Share: 850 ÷ 12,500 = 0.068, which is 6.80%. Allocated cost: 18,000 × 0.068 = $1,224.00. Cost per square foot: 18,000 ÷ 12,500 = $1.44. As a check, 850 sq ft × $1.44 = $1,224, the same figure. A 400 sq ft unit would pay 3.20% of the bill, which is $576.00.
Common mistakes
- Using the total of only the rented units as total area. If some space is vacant or common, decide whether it is in the total; leaving it out raises every remaining unit's share.
- Mixing units, such as a unit in square metres and a total in square feet. The two areas must use the same unit, or the share will be wrong.
- Entering a unit area bigger than the total. A unit cannot be larger than the whole building, and the tool returns no result.
- Treating the per-square-foot figure as a monthly rate when the cost is yearly. The cost is per whatever period the total covers, so a yearly cost gives a yearly rate.
- Applying one split to every kind of cost. Some leases split elevators, parking or master-metered water differently, so use this only for costs shared by floor area.
About this calculator
Allocating a shared cost by square footage divides the total expense in proportion to each unit's share of the total area — a unit's cost equals the total cost multiplied by that unit's area divided by the total area — on the reasoning that space occupied is a fair, objective proxy for how much of a shared resource a tenant or owner benefits from, whether that's heating, common-area maintenance, property tax, or shared utilities.
Property managers, condo and HOA boards, and commercial landlords use area-based allocation to split costs like CAM (common area maintenance) charges, master-metered utilities, or shared roof and structural repairs across multiple tenants or unit owners fairly, since it avoids disputes that come from splitting costs evenly regardless of unit size — a 2,000 sq ft unit pays proportionally more than a 500 sq ft unit for the same shared expense.
This calculator takes the total cost, a specific unit's area in square feet and the total area in square feet, and returns that unit's allocated cost, its percentage share and the cost per square foot. If your areas are in square metres, enter them as they are: the share and allocated cost come out the same as long as both areas use the same unit, only the per-square-foot label would be off.
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