With the average commute to and from work costing more than £5,000 per year from some train journeys and £4,800 for a car commute, the garden office is fast becoming more than just an affordable option. For many workers and self-employed contractors, it’s the best option, both financially and personally.

Buying a garden office is a big decision, though, and like all major purchases, price and quality must factor into your final selection.

So, how do you make sure you get the best value for your money and keep things affordable?

We explore your options as we walk you through some of our most popular SMART Garden Office budget-friendly designs.

Pick Your Garden Office Range

When it comes to selecting a modern garden office, genuine all-year-round usage is a big consideration. If you’re going to work from home at least a few days per week, you will have additional energy costs to consider.

Unless you’re a fan of fingerless gloves, one of the biggest costs will be heating your workspace during the winter months. The good thing about a modern garden office rather than an office in your home is that it is comparatively cheap to heat. That said, though, insulation can vary hugely between different garden office builds.

Before you settle on a design, it’s always worth checking if it is a fully insulated garden office. For example, with every SMART Garden Office design, including our cheapest garden office range, the Key Studio (starting at £12,525), insulation is placed into all elements of the building; the floor, walls, and ceiling, to ensure excellent thermal retention. Likewise, high-quality PVCu windows and doors feature in every design.

With this in mind, what are your budget-friendly, fully insulated garden office design options?

To help, let’s explore the three cheapest garden office ranges we offer.

The Key Studio Range (From £12,525)

Available in over 60 sizes and quite literally hundreds of different configurations, there are very few entry-level modern garden office ranges that match the Key Studio.

As one of our most popular ranges for commuters looking for a modern design, it’s every bit the quality build of its more expensive cousins (the Affinity and Ultra ranges), just cheaper.

You see, the Key Studio offers the same build quality, strength and rigidity as the rest of our SMART® ranges using our TuSC® construction. This includes a pressure-treated chassis, double-glazed windows and doors and a mono-pitched roof. All these elements combined create a durable, strong and unrivalled garden office space that will withstand the test of time.

The Evolve Range (From £12,680)

There’s little price difference between our next range, the Evolve, and the Key Studio. For a 2.6m by 2.6m fully insulated garden office (as pictured), complete with flooring, glazing, and wall-mounted heating – plus your choice of colour, you can expect to pay around £15,420.

As with all our ranges, you have complete flexibility over where you place your doors and windows. With the modern Evolve garden office, you also have the option of a View-Line Roof, as pictured below. This is an optional extra but cheap compared to the same-sized modern extension.

The Belle Range (starting from £12,935)

The Belle range is another firm favourite with those looking for a cheap yet high-quality, fully insulated garden office. As its name suggests, it blends elegance with intelligent design for a beautiful finish – just without the huge price tag. If you decide to skip the train in favour of working from home, you’d easily get your investment back within a few short years.

Obviously, the cost all depends on the size of your intended space.

For a fully insulated garden office that’s suitable for a desk plus a small lounge space (as pictured below) you can expect to pay £15,735. For a smaller modern garden office to fit your desk and a couple of chairs, prices start from £12,935.

Designing Your Office Interior

Much like decorating a new home, the cost of introducing a productive garden office can be expensive. Thankfully, there are ways to kit out your modern garden office without breaking the bank. Here are a few of our favourite tips and tricks if you’re keen on creating a low cost interior design to work from.

Low cost desk and chairs

If you’re lucky, the chances are that your employer will either contribute to or purchase office furniture for you. If you don’t quite have this luxury, or maybe you work for yourself, what are your low cost options?

At SMART Garden Offices, we’re a big fan of caring for our environment and so we love it when our clients tell us about how they found a cheap contemporary desk on Facebook marketplace. Or, better still, how they discovered the perfect work set-up at a charity shop.

The point is, you don’t need to spend a fortune on office furniture unless you want to.

Be smart with your lighting

All our modern garden office ranges feature LED lighting, which are already energy efficient. When it comes to light, it’s also a good idea to position your garden office so that you make the best use of natural light. That way, you may not need to turn the lights on at all.

With unlimited glass on all the SMART ranges, you can make your office as light as you wish, reducing the costs further still.

Upcycle existing pieces of furniture

You’ll be surprised just how many cheap pre-loved items there are on Gumtree just waiting for you to breathe new life into them.

You can also soften your space by introducing contemporary pieces of furniture from your home, much like the owners of this modern garden office have done:

If you’re wondering, these rather lovely poäng chairs can be found at Ikea and are a relatively cheap way of creating a comfortable lounge area.

Take design inspiration from others

Nothing quite beats poaching ideas from other people when it comes to finding low cost ways of furnishing and decorating your modern garden office.

If you haven’t already visited our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter pages, we suggest you do so as they’re packed full of real-life examples from clients across the UK.

If you’re a fan of Pinterest, we also have many featured images to pin’ some of your favourite designs.

Order a Free Brochure

Before you make any quick decisions, we recommend downloading a free copy of our brochure. Inside you will find all the details you need to help you decide on the best fully insulated affordable modern garden office.

Once you’ve settled on a couple of designs, you can take away all the guesswork regarding cost by using our modern garden office configurator. You’ll simply love how you can flit between ranges, change the doors, windows, flooring and walls to create an affordable bespoke design. Then, once you’re ready, you can see exactly how your design will work using our 3D AR visualiser app.

As soon as you have a fixed cost for your chosen design, you can also make some important decisions about financing your build. If you work for yourself, for example, you may be able to claim back some of the costs.

Hopefully, we’ve filled you with confidence today. If you’re still undecided though, we suggest reading our Google Reviews. Having installed thousands of garden offices across the UK, we can confidently say that there’s no better form of validation than having happy clients!