"How much storage do I need?" is the question we hear most often before "what does it cost" — and the two are directly connected, because storage in India is priced by volume (cubic feet, sometimes written CFT), not by a vague small/medium/large tier. Guess too low and you're calling mid-month to upgrade; guess too high and you're paying monthly for empty rack space.
You don't need a tape measure and a spreadsheet — our team sizes every booking with a free survey. But knowing the rough numbers before you call helps you sanity-check a quote, decide between storage and a smaller move, and avoid the two or three items people almost always forget to count.
The unit that actually matters: cubic feet, not room count
"I have a 2 BHK" tells a storage company almost nothing on its own — a 2 BHK with a couple who travel light and one with a decade of accumulated furniture can differ by 200+ cubic feet. What movers and storage facilities actually price against is the volume your goods occupy once packed, measured in cubic feet (CFT). It's the same unit used for packers and movers pricing, so an estimate you build here doubles as a rough moving-cost sanity check too.
The good news: you don't need to calculate this precisely yourself. A free in-person or WhatsApp video survey is how we get an accurate number — the room-by-room figures below exist so you can walk into that call already knowing whether you're roughly a 1 BHK or 3 BHK volume, not so you can skip the survey entirely.
Room-by-room: what common furniture actually occupies
These are indicative volumes per item, based on typical Indian household furniture — treat them as a rough building block, not a quote:
- Double bed with mattress — approx. 40–50 CFT
- 2-door wardrobe / almirah — approx. 35–45 CFT
- 3-seater sofa — approx. 45–60 CFT; a sofa set with two singles adds another 40–50 CFT
- Dining table with 4 chairs — approx. 50–60 CFT
- Refrigerator — approx. 20–25 CFT single-door, 30–35 CFT double-door/side-by-side
- Washing machine — approx. 20–25 CFT
- TV (up to 43") boxed — approx. 8–10 CFT; larger panels a little more
- Study table or work desk — approx. 15–20 CFT
- A packed medium moving box — approx. 1.5–2 CFT each; a typical household ends up with 20–40 of these
Matching your home size to a storage plan
Add up a typical home's furniture and boxes, and clear bands appear. These indicative totals line up with the plan pricing in our household storage cost guide:
- A few boxes / partial household — under 150 CFT — roughly ₹999–₹1,500/month
- 1 BHK (bed, wardrobe, fridge, washing machine, ~20 boxes) — approx. 350–450 CFT — roughly ₹2,500–₹4,000/month
- 2 BHK (add a second bedroom set, dining table, larger sofa) — approx. 550–750 CFT — roughly ₹4,000–₹6,500/month
- 3 BHK (three bedroom sets, full living and dining furniture) — approx. 850–1,100 CFT — roughly ₹6,000–₹9,000/month
- Bulkier furniture (a large L-shaped sofa, a king bed, multiple wardrobes) pushes any of these bands towards its upper end — flag oversized pieces on the call so the quote isn't a surprise
Where people undersize their estimate
The same three blind spots come up on almost every booking where the initial guess was wrong:
- Balconies, lofts and the store room — these get forgotten in a walk-through because they're not 'furniture', but garden pots, suitcases, seasonal items and loft boxes routinely add 50–100 CFT to a home's real total
- Loose packing eats space fast — boxes packed half-empty, or furniture wrapped loosely instead of stacked, can inflate a genuine 400 CFT household to 500+ CFT of billed space; this is exactly why our crews pack for storage rather than customers self-packing loosely
- "We'll probably declutter first" — true for some households, but until items are actually sold or donated, size for what exists today; downsizing the plan later is a phone call, upsizing mid-month after underpricing is a renegotiation
- Kitchen volume is usually underestimated — crockery, small appliances and pantry storage in a full kitchen commonly adds 30–50 CFT that a quick mental room-count misses entirely
When to stop estimating and just book a survey
The numbers above are enough to know whether you're roughly a 1 BHK or 3 BHK volume — useful for budgeting, and for deciding whether storage or a straight house move is the better fit if you're relocating rather than storing. But the number that goes on your written quote should always come from an actual survey, in person or on a WhatsApp video call, where our team walks the rooms (including the balcony and loft) with you.
It costs nothing, takes about 15–20 minutes, and is the only way to catch the oversized wardrobe or the loft full of suitcases before it becomes a mid-month surprise. For an instant ballpark before that call, our cost calculator gives a quick estimate based on home size.