Colocation Pricing 2026
What a Cabinet, a Kilowatt and a Cross-Connect Cost, and How to Pay Less
Published rates are a starting point, not the price. We find the space that is actually available for your requirement and negotiate the price, based on what comparable deployments pay now.
Price My RequirementFigures as of September 2026
Colocation pricing is quoted per kilowatt of committed power per month, with space usually bundled in, plus cross-connects, setup fees and remote hands on top. Wholesale colocation requirements of 250 kW and up averaged about $196 per kW per month across the primary North American markets at the end of 2025 and rose again in the first half of 2026. Smaller retail deployments pay more per kilowatt: roughly $350 to $1,400 in the New York metro, depending on the building. A single 5 kW cabinet at $400 per kW is about $2,000 a month before the extras. Every one of those numbers is an asking rate. What you actually pay depends on the building, the timing and how the deal is negotiated, and for AI and GPU colocation, on whether the building can take the density at all. A data center RFP that makes every provider quote in the same format is where a good price starts.
| What you're buying | Typical 2026 asking price |
|---|---|
| Wholesale colocation, 250 to 500 kW | About $196 per kW per month across primary North American markets at the end of 2025, up another 4.3 percent in the first half of 2026 |
| By market, 250 to 500 kW | Chicago $200 to $230 and Northern Virginia $190 to $235 per kW; Silicon Valley $200 to $275, the widest band; Dallas flat year over year, Atlanta up about 2 percent |
| Smaller retail deployments, NYC metro | About $350 to $1,400 per kW per month, from New Jersey campuses to Manhattan carrier hotels |
| A single rack | kW times the rate: a 5 kW cabinet at $400 per kW is about $2,000 a month |
| Beyond the rate | Cross-connects, setup fees and remote hands, plus annual escalators of 2 to 5 percent |
Sources: CBRE North America Data Center Trends H1 2026 and H2 2025; CBRE Global Data Center Trends 2026. The NYC retail range is a Metro Colo Advisory estimate.
| Deployment | Asking rate | At list | Negotiated, illustrative | Saved over a 3-year term |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One cabinet, 5 kWNYC metro retail | $400 per kW | $2,000 | $1,700 (about 15%) | About $11,000 |
| Five cabinets, 25 kWSecaucus campus | $375 per kW | $9,400 | $8,250 (about 12%) | About $40,000 |
| Cage, 100 kWNew Jersey or Orangeburg | $260 per kW | $26,000 | $23,400 (about 10%) | About $94,000 |
| Wholesale, 500 kWprimary market | $200 per kW | $100,000 | $93,000 (about 7%) | About $250,000 |
| Wholesale, 2 MWprimary market | $195 per kW | $390,000 | $370,500 (about 5%) | About $700,000 |
Illustrative, Metro Colo Advisory, September 2026, not quotes. Asking rates are typical 2026 figures for each tier. Negotiated figures show modest reductions on the rate that narrow as deployments grow, because larger deals start closer to market and today's tight supply leaves less room on price. Results vary by building, timing and term. Free to cite with a link to this page.
The order matters. Once you have asked a provider for pricing directly, that provider will not work through an advisor on your deal, and you negotiate it alone. Send it to us first and you'll hear back within 24 hours from the person who will run your search. We find the space that fits, price it against what comparable deployments pay, and negotiate the deal. The provider pays us, so it costs you nothing.
Why the Published Price Is Rarely the Price You Pay
Every major provider, Equinix, Digital Realty, DataBank, CoreSite, Cologix, prices each requirement individually. There is no public rate card that tells you what comparable companies actually pay, and the same requirement can price very differently from one building, or one month, to the next.
Pricing is set deal by deal
Every provider expects to negotiate. The building, the timing, the term and the size of the commitment all move the number, so the first price offered is rarely the best one available.
Knowing what is available is half the job
With vacancy near a record low, the space that fits your density, power and date is often not what is advertised. Knowing which facilities have it, and which have room to price, is what gets you a good deal.
Benchmarks set the price
What comparable deployments are paying right now, in that market and at that density, is the number that matters in a negotiation. A buyer who knows it gets a better price than one who does not.
What Changed in Colocation and GPU Pricing This Quarter
Space is scarcer, power is getting more expensive in several of the biggest markets, and the newest GPUs cost more to rent than a year ago. Here is where prices stand going into the last quarter of 2026, and what it means if you are buying.
Sources: CBRE North America Data Center Trends H1 2026; GPU medians from our H100 and B200 guides (AIMultiple, GetDeploying, September 2026); commercial electricity prices from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, data through July 2026.
Capacity keeps tightening
A record 7,481 MW is under construction across primary markets, but more than 80% is already preleased. Near-term space comes from existing buildings, so start early and stay flexible on market.
Power costs are rising
Commercial electricity prices rose about 20% in both Ohio and Virginia over the past year, two of the largest increases in the country. Watch power pass-through and escalator clauses closely.
Texas paused new large loads
Texas paused approvals for new large-load grid connections on August 3, 2026. Space in already-energized buildings is unaffected.
Blackwell costs more, and is scarce
H100 rates are holding steady, while B200 rental is up 16% in a year and only about 16% of B200 listings are confirmed in stock.
Incentives are pulling back
Illinois paused its data center incentive in July, New Jersey paused its tax credits in June, and Denver passed a one-year moratorium in May.
Cloud connections got cheaper
AWS added a flat-rate Direct Connect option with data transfer included, and Zayo closed its purchase of Crown Castle’s fiber business in May.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration commercial rates for July 2026, as compiled by Choose Energy. Gold bars mark the largest increases. Data centers on industrial tariffs pay less, but the direction is the same. Free to cite with a link to this page.
What it means for buyers: lock in rates and cap annual increases while there is still a choice of buildings, ask how power is billed and passed through, and price a second market before committing, especially in Northern Virginia and Ohio, where power costs are climbing fastest. For more, see data center connectivity, GPU rental and Texas data centers.
Send your power, markets and timing, or the GPU model and term. You’ll hear back within 24 hours.
The Five Parts of a Colocation Bill
Most buyers look only at the monthly power rate. The other four parts add up, and they are worth reading as closely as the rate.
1. Power
The largest recurring cost and the most negotiated. Priced per committed kilowatt (you pay for the allocation whether you use it or not) or, less often, metered. Providers quote in kVA; your hardware draws watts, and the conversion sets your committed tier. What moves it: knowing what comparable deployments pay in that market, and having more than one good option.
2. Space
A cabinet, a cage of five to twenty cabinets, a suite, or a whole hall for wholesale. In most retail deployments the space is bundled into the power rate, so negotiating the rate negotiates both. Manhattan space carries a premium over New Jersey for the same square footage.
3. Cross-connects
The cables to carriers, clouds and peers. A typical deployment needs four to ten; connectivity-heavy ones need twenty or more, and in carrier hotels they can cost more than the power. The most negotiable line on the bill: installation waived and monthly rates reduced are common concessions in a well-run negotiation.
4. Remote hands
Facility staff working on your equipment, billed hourly with minimums, at higher rates after hours. Negotiate a bundled monthly allowance; unbundled hours add up fast for active deployments.
5. Setup and installation
One-time charges for space, power and circuit installation. High density and liquid-cooled deployments cost far more to set up. Often reduced or waived: setup fees are a frequent concession when the deal is negotiated before signing.
How power prices by density
Standard 3 to 10 kW racks are the bulk of the market. Air-cooled high density to about 70 kW commands a premium and fewer facilities. Liquid-cooled rack-scale AI at 120 kW and up is constrained by availability more than price. Per kW the rates are often similar; per rack, high density costs several times more. See AI and GPU colocation and wholesale colocation.
Example Market: Where Each NYC Provider Sits
Within the New York metro's roughly $350 to $1,400 per kW range for smaller deployments, from least to most expensive. Positions are Metro Colo Advisory's read of the market, not quotes; your rate depends on size, density, term and negotiation.
| Provider and zone | Relative cost | How it compares | High density | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manhattan carrier hotels60 Hudson, 111 8th | Highest | 20 to 40 percent above Secaucus | Limited | Manhattan carrier connectivity |
| Equinix NY4Secaucus | Premium | The highest in Secaucus | Premium | Financial trading ecosystem |
| Equinix NY5Secaucus | Upper mid | Below NY4, above CoreSite | Capable | Enterprise deployments on the campus |
| Digital RealtyNew Jersey sites | Upper mid | In line with comparable Secaucus space | Standard | Hybrid cloud via ServiceFabric, multi-site |
| CoreSite NY2 and NY3Secaucus | Mid | Below Equinix NY4 | Competitive; liquid cooling at NY3 | Standard enterprise, hybrid cloud |
| DataBank LGA3Orangeburg | Mid | Below Equinix NY5 at comparable density | Strongest value for GPU and AI | High density and AI |
| DataBank 165 HalseyNewark | Lower | Among the lowest in the metro | Standard | Cost-competitive standard deployments |
| CologixParsippany | Lower | Among the lowest in the metro | Limited | Cost-sensitive enterprise, disaster recovery |
The same pattern holds in every market we cover: carrier hotels at the top, the flagship campus next, the modern purpose-built sites in the middle, and the value operators below. The NYC provider comparison lays the five out in full, and the market guides for Chicago, Dallas, Northern Virginia, Atlanta and San Francisco cover each market's rates.
Colocation vs Cloud Pricing
Public cloud is priced for flexibility, and you pay for it every month whether you use it or not. For workloads that run steadily around the clock, the same computing usually costs less elsewhere. The question is where.
| Option | What you pay for | Wins when | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public cloudAWS, Azure, Google Cloud | Usage by the hour, plus data transfer out | Workloads spike, shrink or are still experimental | Data transfer at 5 to 9 cents per GB; roughly 29 percent of cloud spend is wasted (Flexera 2026) |
| Colocationyour servers, their building | Power per kW, space, cross-connects | Steady workloads and a team that runs its own hardware | Hardware up front; contract terms of three to five years |
| Bare metalrented dedicated servers | A monthly fee per server | Steady workloads without buying hardware | You still run the software; less flexible than cloud |
| Private cloudmanaged, dedicated | A monthly fee for servers plus management | Leaving VMware or wanting cloud-style operations without the cloud bill | Platform licensing can outweigh the savings |
| Reserved GPU capacity8 GPUs and up | A fixed rate per GPU-hour for a set term | AI inference or training that runs most of the time | Term length and delivery dates matter as much as the rate |
A steady application workload
$50,000 a month in the cloud typically runs $30,000 to $37,500 in colocation or on bare metal, 25 to 40 percent less. Above roughly $15,000 to $20,000 a month in steady spend, the move is usually worth modeling. The cloud repatriation guide has the full method.
A 64-GPU H100 inference fleet
About $321,000 a month at hyperscaler on-demand rates, about $152,000 on a specialist GPU cloud, and about $80,000 owned in colocation over three years, before power and financing. The GPU rental guide covers renting versus owning.
Send the monthly spend and what runs on it. We price the same workloads in colocation, on bare metal and in private cloud, place the one that wins at no cost to you, and tell you plainly if staying in the cloud is the right answer. Run your own first pass with the cloud vs colocation calculator.
Contract Terms That Cost More Than the Rate
The rate gets negotiated. The terms usually don't, and over a three to five year term they decide more of the total cost.
Escalation clauses
Automatic increases of 2 to 5 percent a year on your committed rate. Capping or removing the escalator is worth six figures over five years on a mid-market deployment. Know your exposure in years three, four and five before signing.
Auto-renewal
Contracts renew automatically, often at a higher rate, with notice windows of 90 to 180 days. Miss the window and you are locked into another full term. Longer windows and capped renewal rates are standard asks.
Minimum power commitments
You pay for the committed kilowatts whether you use them or not. Overestimate and you pay for air; underestimate and growth costs a premium. Model the ramp before you commit.
Early termination
Typically the remaining committed fees for the term. Negotiate caps and step-downs before signature, not after.
Remote hands caps
A bundled monthly allowance prevents open-ended hourly charges for routine work.
The full list
The data center lease guide covers every provision that matters, from retail colocation contracts to wholesale leases.
How to Get the Right Price
Define the requirement
Power in actual kilowatts, not nameplate. Cabinet count. Density. Compliance. Carriers, cloud on-ramps and peers you need. Timeline.
Find what is actually available
The facilities that can deliver your power and density on your date, which is rarely the same as what is advertised.
Compare the whole bill
Power, cross-connects, setup, remote hands, escalators and commitments together. The lowest rate is not always the lowest cost over the term.
Negotiate with benchmarks
Knowing what comparable deployments pay in that market is the only real leverage. That is what we bring to every negotiation, and why sending us the requirement first beats requesting quotes yourself.
Why Going Through Us Gets You a Better Price
We work for the buyer. The provider you choose pays our commission when the deal closes, out of the same channel budget it would spend on its own sales team, so your price is not marked up for our fee. What changes is that someone who knows the market is finding the space and negotiating it for you.
Current benchmarks
We see what comparable deployments actually pay across every major provider, which no rate card and no single negotiation will tell you.
What is available now
We know which facilities have space at your density and date, including space that is not advertised, so you see the real options, not just the obvious ones.
Terms negotiated
Escalators, renewal terms, commitments and fees negotiated with the price, before you sign, not discovered in year three.
One contact
Providers quote through us. Nobody calls you unless you ask, and you see the options side by side.
Independent
We hold channel relationships with the major operators and no stake in which one you pick. If the provider you had in mind is the right one at a fair price, we will say so.
North American coverage
Every market we cover, and the operators outside our channel when a requirement needs them. See how a data center broker works.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does colocation cost per month?
It depends on how much power you need. Wholesale requirements of 250 kW and up averaged about $196 per kW per month across primary North American markets at the end of 2025, according to CBRE, and rose 4.3 percent in the first half of 2026. Smaller retail deployments cost more per kilowatt: roughly $350 to $1,400 in the New York metro depending on the facility. A single 5 kW cabinet at $400 per kW is about $2,000 a month before cross-connects, setup fees and remote hands. Those are asking rates. What you pay depends on the building, timing, term and negotiation, and smaller deployments usually have more room on the rate than large ones.
How do I benchmark my colocation contract against current market rates?
Compare the per-kW rate, the cross-connect and setup fees, the escalator and the commitment against what comparable deployments in the same market and density are paying now. Published surveys such as CBRE's give the wholesale band by market; retail and provider-specific benchmarks come from live deals, which is what we bring. If you are planning a new deployment or a move, send us the requirement before you contact providers, at no cost.
What is a typical annual price escalator in a colocation contract?
2 to 5 percent a year, applied to the committed monthly rate. At 3 percent, a $20,000-a-month deployment costs about $2,500 more per month by year five and roughly $75,000 more over the term than a flat rate. Escalators can be capped, delayed or removed in negotiation, and before signing is when providers agree to it.
Which colocation providers avoid surprise fees and keep pricing consistent over multi-year contracts?
Consistency comes from the contract, not the provider's brand. Every major operator will write a contract with a capped escalator, a fixed cross-connect schedule, bundled remote hands and a clear renewal rate, and every one will also write a contract without them. The buyers who get the consistent version asked for it before signing, with market benchmarks in hand.
Is there a colocation pricing calculator?
The table near the top of this page gives list and negotiated monthly costs for one cabinet through 2 MW, and our cloud vs colocation calculator compares a cloud bill against colocation for the same workload. For a real number for your requirement, send it to us before you contact providers, and you'll hear back within 24 hours.
Why is colocation list pricing so different from what companies actually pay?
List pricing is a starting point. Providers price each requirement individually, based on the building, timing, term and size, and the final number depends on negotiation. Smaller deployments usually see more movement on the rate; larger ones see it more in fees and terms. A buyer who knows what comparable deployments pay gets the better number.
How much do cross-connect fees cost, and are they negotiable?
They vary by facility and connection type, with Manhattan carrier hotels well above New Jersey campuses, and a connectivity-heavy deployment can pay more for cross-connects than for power. They are the most negotiable line on the bill: installation fees are frequently waived and monthly rates reduced in a well-run negotiation.
How is high density colocation for AI priced differently?
Per kW, high density space often prices close to conventional space, but each rack draws several times the power, so the cost per rack is several times higher, setup costs more, and far fewer facilities qualify. Above about 70 kW per rack, liquid cooling is required, and availability rather than price becomes the constraint. See AI and GPU colocation.
Is colocation cheaper than AWS or Azure?
For steady workloads, usually. On the workloads that move, dedicated infrastructure typically saves 30 to 50 percent once every cost is counted, and far more for steady GPU inference. Cloud still wins for variable workloads and early-stage products. Above roughly $15,000 to $20,000 a month in steady spend, the comparison is worth running.
How does NYC colocation pricing compare to Chicago or Dallas?
New York is among the most expensive markets in the country, reflecting supply constraints, carrier density and the financial ecosystem. For standard enterprise deployments without a location requirement, Dallas, Houston and Atlanta typically run 15 to 25 percent below comparable New York space, and Chicago and Northern Virginia sit at the top of the wholesale range. We evaluate which market delivers the best economics for a requirement that can move.
Does using a colocation broker actually save money?
It usually does. The provider pays the advisor from its channel budget, so your price is not marked up. Going direct means negotiating alone against a sales team that prices deals every day, without knowing what comparable deployments pay or which other facilities have space. An advisor brings both, which is what moves the price.
Get a Better Price on Your Next Deployment
Send the requirement: power in kilowatts, cabinet count, density, compliance, connectivity and timeline. You'll hear back within 24 hours from the person who will run your search. We find the space that fits, price it against what comparable deployments pay, and negotiate the deal. No cost, no obligation, and the provider you choose pays us.
Once you have gone direct, the provider will not work through an advisor on your deal. Come to us first and we can work the whole market for you.
Providers and markets: the provider comparison and the NYC metro.
Other ways to pay less: cloud repatriation, bare metal and GPU rental.
