How to buy an office pod without overpaying.

We sell these, so read this accordingly. What follows is the same advice we give on the phone, including the parts that cost us margin — that a Solo is usually the right answer over a Solo Plus, that screens are cheaper if your problem is visual distraction rather than noise, and that hiring beats buying under six months.

The reason for being straight about it is simple. Most of what is published about office pods is written by people who have never installed one, and the specification claims in this category are close to unregulated. If you finish this page able to interrogate any supplier's quote, including ours, we are happy.

Size is where most of the money is won or lost, and the mistake runs in both directions. Buying one size down to save $3,000 gets you a pod used for the wrong thing. Buying a large square pod when a narrow one would have fitted costs you floor space you cannot get back.

Match the shape to the wall, not just the headcount. A 2300 × 966 mm pod fits flat against a wall run or window line. A 2300 × 1785 mm pod needs a corner or an island position and eats circulation space. Both seat similar numbers.

Dimensions are exterior, width × depth × height. Interior heights are 2146 mm across the range, so ceiling clearance is the same question whichever model you choose.

Ask for the standard and the report number, not the decibel figure. Speech level reduction in booths is measured under ISO 23351-1:2020, which sorts results into classes. Class A is the highest.

A supplier quoting "up to 35 dB" with nothing behind it is quoting a number from a brochure. The measurement conditions matter enormously — a figure taken at one frequency, or on a sealed sample rather than a built booth with a door in it, is not comparable to a Class A result.

Two other things worth knowing. Nothing is soundproof, and any supplier using that word without qualification is overselling. And the door decides more than the wall does: panel density is easy to specify and hard to check, but a poorly sealed door is audible from the first day.

This is the most under-asked question in the category, and the reason perfectly good pods sit empty. A booth with weak airflow becomes uncomfortable within twenty minutes, people notice, and after two bad experiences they go back to taking calls at their desk.

Ask for the airflow in cubic metres per hour and the air change interval. As a reference point, a one-person booth moving up to 70 m³/h changes its air roughly every 1.6 minutes, and a six-person pod at 327 m³/h every 2.4 minutes.

Also ask what happens when nobody is inside. A pod that only ventilates when occupied is stale when the next person opens the door. Ours runs a five-minute exchange every thirty minutes of vacancy for exactly this reason.

A pod supplied for the Australian market plugs into a standard 240V 10A outlet, draws between 40 and 120 W, and needs no dedicated circuit, hard-wiring or electrician. Internal wiring should be to AS/NZS 3000, with a circuit breaker inside the pod.

Units imported directly from overseas marketplaces frequently arrive with US or EU outlets, which cannot legally be used here without rework. Retro-fitting Australian outlets to an imported booth is not a cheap afternoon. Confirm the outlets and the wiring standard in writing before ordering, whoever you buy from.

Net assembled weights range from 290 kg for Solo to 852 kg for Max. Packed weights include packaging and are listed separately. Ask your building manager or structural engineer to assess the pod, furniture and occupant loads and support locations against site-specific floor capacity.

Twelve to sixteen weeks is standard for pods built to order overseas. If your team needs quiet space before a move, an audit, a hiring intake or a lease event, a cheaper pod arriving in December is not cheaper.

Ask what is physically in Australia today, in what colours, and get the lead time in writing. Standard white and grey combinations usually ship within days. Custom colours are genuinely a four to six week build, and any supplier promising custom finishes overnight is telling you something else.

The single most useful thing you can do is insist every quote is broken into pod, freight, installation and furniture as separate lines. Bundled numbers are not comparable between suppliers, and that is usually the point of them.

For reference, here is what the lines look like across our range.

All ex GST. Delivery is included Australia-wide. Ask about multi-unit discounts — most suppliers hold one back for the second and third pod and will not offer it unprompted.

The full range and current pricing · One-person phone booths · Meeting pods for two to six · Pod versus building a meeting room · Hire instead of buying