Meeting Rooms
Where Can I Rent a Meeting Room for an Hour in Toronto?
Tamar Gagnidze
Community Manager
Last updated
Yes, you can rent a meeting room by the hour in Toronto. Rates run from free (Toronto Public Library, if you can plan a couple of weeks ahead) up to $175 per hour for a fully equipped boardroom at a premium coworking space. The harder question is which option actually fits your meeting, because not every $80 room is a good place to take a client pitch and not every $40 room is wrong for one.
I run the front desk at a coworking space in Etobicoke, and people call us asking about meeting rooms almost every day. The thing I've noticed is that "for an hour" is usually the wrong frame. By the time you factor in setup, finding parking, checking in, and getting your guests settled, you're really planning a 90-minute block. Plan for that and you'll save yourself the panicked call I get about ten minutes before every booking.
Here's the honest landscape.
The four kinds of hourly meeting rooms in Toronto
Coworking spaces
This is the most common option, and the most variable. Independent coworking spaces (us, Workhaus, iQ Offices, Workplace One, and a long tail of smaller operators) usually offer hourly room bookings to non-members, sometimes through their own site, sometimes through platforms like LiquidSpace.
Pricing typically lands between $40 and $80 per hour for a small huddle room (4 to 6 people) and $100 to $200 for a full boardroom (8 to 14 people). Most have a one-hour minimum. A few will hold you to two.
What you're paying for, when it's done right, is more than the room. It's a real lobby with a real person greeting your guest, fast Wi-Fi that won't drop your video call, a screen that actually connects to your laptop without a fifteen-minute hardware adventure, and the ability to walk out and grab a coffee without leaving the building.
Hotel business centres
If you have an out-of-town client coming in, or you want maximum formality, hotel meeting rooms work well. The Westin Harbour Castle, the Fairmont Royal York, the Chelsea, and most of the downtown business hotels rent rooms by the hour or half-day. Expect $100 to $250 per hour depending on size and hotel tier, plus a tendency for catering and AV to be charged separately.
You're paying for the address, the lobby, and the operational polish. You're also paying for things you may not need, like coat check, a doorman, and a banquet manager who isn't going to sit in your meeting.
Toronto Public Library
TPL has community meeting rooms across dozens of branches, and the cost is genuinely low. The catch is operational: you need a credit card on file, you have to book through the library's room-booking unit during weekday business hours, and the popular branches are usually reserved weeks out.
This works for community groups, recurring committee meetings, study sessions, or workshops that don't need much AV. It does not work for "I have a client meeting Thursday and need a professional setting." Plan ahead or skip this one.
On-demand platforms
Peerspace and LiquidSpace aggregate rooms from coworking spaces, studios, hotels, and unconventional venues (lofts, photography studios, restaurants in off-hours). Pricing is all over the map, from $40 per hour for a small space to several hundred for a designer loft.
Quality varies. The platform reviews help, but they tend to skew toward people who booked for the right reason. A space that's perfect for a podcast recording can be a disaster for a board meeting if you don't read carefully.
What to ask before you book
This is the part most listicles skip, and it's the part that actually matters at the front desk. Before you put down a card, ask:
- What's the minimum booking? Some spaces sell "hourly" rooms with a two-hour floor. If your meeting is 45 minutes, you may be paying for two hours regardless.
- What's actually included? Whiteboard and markers, large screen, HDMI or wireless casting, a conference phone or video conferencing setup, water service. Don't assume any of these. I have watched people show up with a deck on a USB stick and no way to display it.
- What's the Wi-Fi like? "We have Wi-Fi" is not an answer. The right answer mentions enterprise-grade hardware (we run Ubiquiti, for context) and ideally a guest network. If you're hosting a Zoom call with seven people on video, this matters more than the chairs.
- Where do guests check in, and who greets them? A keypad code at a side door tells your client one thing. A staffed reception desk tells them another. Decide which version of you they're meeting.
- What's the parking situation? In Etobicoke and the inner suburbs, this is usually fine. Downtown, it's frequently $20 to $35 to park for a one-hour meeting. Build it into the cost.
- What's the cancellation policy? Most spaces allow free cancellation up to 24 hours out. Some platforms are stricter. Read it before you book, not after your client reschedules.
Matching the room to the meeting
The honest framework I'd give a friend:
- Client pitch or first impression with someone new. Coworking space or hotel. Both have lobbies that signal professionalism. If the relationship is the point, spend the extra $30.
- Job interview or candidate screening. Coworking space, somewhere quiet, ideally in a small enclosed room rather than a glass-walled boardroom. You don't want the candidate feeling watched by passersby.
- Video call you can't take from home. You don't need a boardroom. You need a small huddle room with a door, a clean wall behind you, and reliable internet. This is the cheapest version of the rental and usually the best fit for the use case.
- Recurring team check-in or working session. Look at packages or memberships rather than one-off hourly bookings. Once you're spending $200 a week on rooms, a membership pencils out.
- Investor pitch, deposition, or anything formal. Premium coworking boardroom or hotel. The room itself is a credibility cue.
A note on Jilani Place
We're at 295 The West Mall in Etobicoke, off the 427 and a few minutes from the airport. Our meeting rooms are open to non-members on an hourly basis. Three options:
- Huddle Hub, $60/hour. Seats up to 4. Best for one-on-ones, candidate interviews, and video calls.
- Innovation Boardroom, $125/hour. Seats up to 8. Best for team meetings, client pitches, and small workshops.
- Smart Boardroom, $175/hour. Seats up to 12. Full AV, video conferencing built in. The room you'd book for an investor meeting or a client presentation that needs to land.
Free parking, our network is enterprise Ubiquiti throughout the building, and there's a coffee shop on the ground floor so your guests have somewhere to wait if they're early. I'm usually the person who'll greet them.
We get a lot of independent professionals (consultants, brokers, lawyers, financial advisors) who don't need an office every day but need a real room when a client is coming in. If that's you, the math usually works in our favour for hourly bookings versus driving downtown and paying for parking.
A reasonable next step
If you have a specific meeting coming up, you can book any of the rooms above directly. If you're more in the "I might need rooms a few times a month and I want to actually see the space first" camp, grab a day pass. You'll get a feel for the rooms, the network, and the lobby before you commit to anything that matters.
Either way, plan for ninety minutes when you're booking for an hour. That's the front-desk lesson.
Tamar Gagnidze is the Community Manager at Jilani Place, a premium coworking space at 295 The West Mall in Etobicoke, where she leads member experience and day-to-day operations for solo professionals and small teams across the GTA.