Pricing & comparison
Flat-rate vs per-seat pricing for a virtual office: what a 20-person remote team pays
A virtual office tool is priced in one of two ways: per seat (you pay for every member you register, every month) or per space (you pay a flat fee for a floor that holds up to N people at once). For a remote team that keeps growing, the difference is not small. At US$10 per seat, a team of 20 pays US$200 a month; a flat-rate space for up to 50 people costs the same whether 3 people or 30 are inside.
This article explains how each model counts people, where each one is cheaper, and what to check before you sign up. It does not name other products or quote their prices; for that, see our comparison articles, which cite official pricing pages with the date we checked them.
How per-seat pricing counts people
Per-seat pricing bills you for every registered member, usually per month. A member is anyone with an account in your workspace: full-time staff, part-timers who log in twice a week, the contractor you added for one project, and the intern who left but was never removed.
Three things follow from that:
- The bill grows with headcount, not with use. Someone who drops in for 20 minutes on Friday costs the same as someone who sits in the office all day.
- Housekeeping becomes a monthly chore. To keep the bill honest, an admin has to remove people who left and add people who joined. Forgetting costs money; being too eager locks people out.
- Guests are often free, members are not. Many per-seat tools let guests join without a seat. That is convenient for client calls, but it also means the lowest-cost way to add a teammate is to pretend they are a guest, which is not how anyone wants to run a team.
Per-seat pricing is predictable per person and fair when every member uses the tool heavily. It is a poor fit when a large part of the team is occasional.
How flat-rate (per-space) pricing counts people
A flat-rate space charges for capacity: the number of people who can be inside at the same time. You pick a size, say up to 25 or up to 50 at once, and pay one monthly fee. You can register as many members as you want. What matters is how many are in the room right now.
For Hotori, the two sizes are:
| Plan | People inside at once | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | up to 25 | US$39 | US$390 |
| Business | up to 50 | US$69 | US$599 |
Prices are in US dollars for customers outside Japan, and the final amount is shown at checkout. Guests count while they are inside, members do not count while they are offline. If more people show up than the plan allows, up to 2 extra can still get in; beyond that, newcomers see a “full” message, and the owner can always enter.
What follows from this model:
- Inviting one more person costs nothing. New hire, intern, part-time designer, the accountant who joins once a month: add them and forget about it.
- No monthly seat audit. Nobody has to remove leavers to keep the bill down.
- You pay for peak concurrency, not headcount. A 40-person company where at most 25 people are online at the same time fits in a 25-person space.
The trade-off is that a flat-rate space is a worse deal for a very small team that is always fully online. At US$10 a seat, three people would pay US$30 a month, less than the smaller plan.
Worked numbers: 10, 20, and 50 people
The table below uses US$10 per seat as an illustrative per-seat price. It is a round number for comparison, not the price of any specific product.
| Registered members | Per-seat at US$10 each | Flat-rate: up to 25 at once | Flat-rate: up to 50 at once |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | US$100 / month | US$39 / month | US$69 / month |
| 20 | US$200 / month | US$39 / month | US$69 / month |
| 50 | US$500 / month | not enough if all 50 are online at once | US$69 / month |
Two notes on reading this:
- The flat-rate column assumes your peak concurrency fits the plan. A 20-person team rarely has all 20 online at the same moment, so the 25-person plan usually fits. If you regularly go over, the 50-person plan is the right size.
- Per-seat tools may bundle things a flat-rate space does not, such as recording or transcription hours. If your team needs those, price them in.
Where each model wins
| Your situation | Better fit |
|---|---|
| 2 or 3 people, all online all day | Per seat is usually cheaper |
| A team that grows or changes often | Flat rate: adding people is free |
| Many occasional users (part-time, contractors, advisors) | Flat rate: you pay for who is inside, not who exists |
| You need usage-based extras (recording hours, transcription) | Check what the per-seat plan bundles |
| You want one line item that does not move month to month | Flat rate |
| Several departments with separate budgets | Either; flat rate makes a shared floor easy to split |
What to check before you sign up, whichever model you pick
- What exactly is counted? Registered members, active members, or people inside at once. Ask what happens to someone who has not logged in for 30 days.
- How are guests counted? Free, free up to a limit, or the same as members. With Hotori, guests count only while they are inside.
- What happens at the limit? Is the extra person blocked, is everyone’s audio cut, or is there a small buffer? Hotori lets up to 2 extra people in and then shows a “full” message to the next one.
- Is there a minimum seat count or a minimum term? Some per-seat plans have a minimum, such as 5 seats. Some yearly plans cannot be switched back to monthly until renewal.
- Trial terms. How long, whether a card is required, and what happens on the day the trial ends. Hotori gives 30 days with no card, with everything in the paid plans and up to 50 people at once.
- Taxes and currency. Prices on a US pricing page are usually before sales tax. Hotori‘s prices are in US dollars for customers outside Japan, and the final amount is shown at checkout.
For these numbers next to the other tools, with sources, see Compare pricing.
Sources
- Hotori pricing: https://hotoriplace.com/en/#pricing (prices as published on October 30, 2026)
- The US$10 per-seat figure is an illustrative round number, not any specific product’s price.