How to Increase Your Parking Revenue by 457%
Are you one of many who are struggling with profitability in their parking operations? Does it feel like your parking facilities cost more than they bring in? It doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, with the right approach, your parking assets can transform from a headache into a high-performing revenue engine.
We’ll show you how one parking facility in Stockholm increased its revenue by 457% — using just three smart strategies:
- Minimising vacancies
- Setting market-based pricing
- Classifying parking spaces more intelligently
It may sound too good to be true, but every number in this article comes from a real case we worked on. And if they could do it — so can you.
Starting Point: Reserved Monthly Parking
Our reference case begins with a typical scenario:
- 51 reserved parking spaces
- Monthly rent: € 82,5 per space
- Vacancy rate: 52.9%
A high vacancy rate is extremely common in manually managed parking portfolios. So how do you turn this around?
Option #1: Minimise Vacancy
When vacancy is high, reducing it is the simplest and quickest way to boost revenue.
In this Stockholm facility, filling existing vacancies alone would increase revenue by 112% — from € 23 760 to € 50 490 per year.
Not bad for the lowest-hanging fruit.
Three ways to reduce vacancy:
- Publish available spaces on a digital waiting list so customers can register interest themselves.
- Promote your waiting list internally and externally.
- Automate queue management and allocation with a system that matches interested customers with available spaces.
Option #2: Market-Based Pricing
If you want to take the next step, look at your pricing model.
Originally, all spaces were priced equally — € 82,5/month — despite major differences in:
- Location
- Surface type (asphalt vs. gravel)
- Size and convenience
By introducing basic differentiation, revenue potential skyrocketed:
- Reserved “Standard”: € 100/month
- Reserved “Standard Plus”: € 140/month
With updated pricing alone, annual revenue would increase to € 68 880 per year — a 189% increase.
“People are willing to pay for premium if it’s packaged as premium.”
— Pelle Sjögren, Mobility46
Will tenants get angry about a price increase?
Most fear backlash — but reality is different.
One major property owner raised prices on premium spaces by over 100% after reclassification. The result?
The most expensive spaces sold out first.
When pricing reflects value, customers feel empowered — not penalised.
Option #3: Classifying Spaces & Expanding the Service Offering
This is the most advanced strategy — and the one that produces the biggest uplift in both revenue and customer satisfaction.
It requires stepping back and looking at the full ecosystem:
How to build a high-performing parking offer
- Analyse parking demand in and around the property
- Classify parking spaces to match actual customer needs
- Convert reserved spaces into unreserved zones to increase utilisation
- Future-proof your offer with EV charging, car sharing, bike pools and more
What the Stockholm facility did
The owner shifted from renting out 51 identical spaces to offering a diversified portfolio:
- Reserved monthly parking “premium” (7 spots): € 140/month
- Unreserved parking (daytime) (19 spots): € 100/month
- Unreserved parking (evening/weekend) (19 spots): € 80/month
- Reserved EV charging points 3.7 kW (13 spots): € 140 parking agreement + € 50 charging agreement/month
- Visitor parking (7 spots): € 3/h (based on 20% occupancy)
- Public charging spots (2x11 kW): € 5/h (calculated on 15% utilization)
- Car pool, 3 spots
- Cycling pool
In total, this generated an annual revenue of € 132 372, which was an increase of 457% compared to baseline.
Future-Proofing Your Parking Business Doesn’t Have to Be Difficult
There is so much you can do to modernise and optimise your parking operations — but you don’t need to do everything at once.
Our advice:
Start small, build momentum, and choose the first step that feels most natural:
- Pricing?
- EV charging?
- Switching to unreserved parking?
- Reducing vacancy?
Once you begin, you'll quickly see opportunities to expand the offer — through controlled overbooking, managed utilisation, ANPR-based visitor parking, and more.
And when you’re ready to take the next step, we’re here to support you — just one click away.
Do you also want to maximize your parking revenue?
We help property owners and parking operators reduce vacancies, price correctly and create modern, profitable parking offers. Get in touch and we'll tell you more!
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