There has never been a moment in self-storage history where the gap between well-chosen vendors and poorly chosen ones mattered more than it does today.
We are currently choosing our vendors for a new brand and have discovered one thing… Vendors today can make or break you!
I have been researching this for a few weeks, and let me set the backdrop of why I say this:
- The post-COVID development boom dropped approximately 53 million net rentable square feet into the pipeline, and most of that went into service.
- National stabilized occupancy slid downward in Q4 2025, and rents went flat to negative in the Sun Belt.
- AI has rewritten what good revenue management looks like.
- 72% of storage customers now start their search online — most of them on a Google Business Profile or in a paid-search ad before they ever see your facility.
- Online marketing has never been more important, and AI recommendations for potential customers are becoming more and more relevant each and every month.
The vendors you select for operating systems, revenue management, marketing, call handling, access control, and PMS now control the levers that, for the most part, used to belong to you. Pick well and you compound the advantages storage can offer and your chances for success, pick poorly and you pay. I have seen this with my own eyes.
AI has redefined the operating baseline
AI-driven revenue management is no longer experimental. Operators on platforms like Veritec, Stora, Cuby, and Monument reported same-store revenue growth above 4 percent in 2025, while several public REITs reported flat to negative same-store results. AI virtual agents in operating systems or from vendors are resolving 70 to 85 percent of routine inbound calls and cutting call-center headcount by roughly 25%.
If your competitor down the street is utilizing this and you are not, you are running a higher-cost, lower-revenue facility against them every single day.
The customer journey is now almost entirely digital
Roughly 72% of storage customers start their search online, and well-optimized Google Business Profiles generate twice the customer interactions of unmanaged ones. Aggregators like SpareFoot can drive lead volume but can be costly, while direct online conversion through SEO, paid search, and now GSO (see last week’s episode) are the largest lever for move-ins and lease-up. The truth is this, the vendor that controls your top-of-funnel controls your move-ins and your lease-up success.
Operating Software and AI and Revenue Management Are The Biggest Vendor Bets You’ll Make
Revenue management is where vendor selection has the most direct, measurable, and difficult-to-reverse impact on financial performance. The wrong RMS will quietly cost you 5 to 10 percent of NOI, not to mention screw up your lease-up velocity.
Modern AI revenue management takes live occupancy data, data from competitor scrapes, your historical data and conversions, seasonality, lead source mix, and tenant data to give good pricing or pricing suggestions.
The challenge today is, even good systems like Cubby and Monument differ on integration ability, transparency of recommendations, and the operator’s ability to override. The right pick is not always clear-cut, at least not for us yet.
Competing for storage customers in self-storage has consolidated into now five channels that all need to be not only working, but working well:
- Google Business Profile
- Google Search (paid + organic)
- Aggregators, and now…
- GSO
For the most part, vendors today own the operator’s relationship with each of these, and a weak one in any single channel can starve a facility for months before anyone notices and have a drastic impact on a P&L.
Storable recently said that “GBP is the number one local ranking factor for self-storage.”
Now I’m not sure if that is true yet, but think about that for a minute. Typical SEO and website construction around Google algorithms, for the most part, have no effect on AI platforms recommending your facility. Does whatever operating system or website vendor you are utilizing for your sites take into account this new world of GSO? Even if they say yes, how effective are they?
A vendor that treats your GBP as an afterthought is the vendor that most likely has a short time left in the market. The question is, are they now one of your current vendors?
Challenges With Just Relying On Google Paid Searches
Self-storage has always had challenges in traditional online marketing, and I have talked often about it.
- Hyper-local audience.
- Low audience numbers and low average sale price for Google analytics to give meaningful information.
- Fast customer decision time.
- Aggressive REIT bidding on keywords.
A traditional marketing vendor has been woefully inadequate in my experience. They have very poor results, burn fast through a budget on broad match “storage” terms, and fail to bid intelligently against competitors. In my experience they have been terrible. If one is in lease-up, the consequences can be especially difficult to stomach.
A Vendor Vetting Checklist
I really have had to learn a lot and up my knowledge in my recent adventures in selecting vendors for a new storage brand.
Before selecting any meaningful vendor in 2026 such as your operating system, online marketing, call center, etc., I suggest working through the following:
- Pricing: Is the cost to you a flat rate, per unit, or percent of revenue? Run the math at high and low occupancy rates. The right answer differs by vendor type and operator.
- Integration depth. Documented APIs and case studies of customers using them with at least two of your other vendors. “Custom integration available” or “open API integrations” I have learned can mean a lot of different things.
- Reference customers. Talk to three current customers your size, in different size markets, on a call you arrange, not just a reference the vendor suggested.
- Asset ownership. Are all marketing assets, ad accounts, call-tracking numbers, and analytics living in accounts you control? Critical in my opinion.
- Website Analysis: A partner of mine has been having an independent consultant analyze the websites of operating systems that have them as part of the operating system. I won’t give names here, but one of the biggest and best had this report from a facility utilizing the websites they provided the customer.
Key Findings at a Glance
The following metrics are drawn from Google PageSpeed Insights (mobile, 28-day field data from rent.idealstorage.com) and a site audit conducted May 2026.
|
FAILED
Core Web Vitals (Mobile)
|
0.43
CLS Score (Poor > 0.25)
|
3.5s
LCP — (Poor > 4s threshold)
|
2,777
Redirect chains in Semrush audit
|
| Metric | Score | Status | Threshold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | 3.5s (75th %ile) | NEEDS IMPROVEMENT | Good ≤ 2.5s |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | 0.43 (75th %ile) | POOR | Good ≤ 0.10 |
| Interaction to Next Paint (INP) | 138ms (75th %ile) | GOOD | Good ≤ 200ms |
| First Contentful Paint (FCP) | 1.3s (75th %ile) | GOOD | Good ≤ 1.8s |
| Time to First Byte (TTFB) | 0.6s (75th %ile) | GOOD | Good ≤ 0.8s |
What this means
Two of the three Core Web Vitals are failing on mobile:
Now don’t ask me what this all means except this website needs improvement.
What Is At Stake
In a flat-to-down rate environment, with 51 million square feet of new supply landing in 2026 and AI redefining the cost structure of the industry, the operators who win are not the ones with the biggest portfolios. They are the ones who choose their vendors well.
Five years from now, those who have chosen well will be visible in cap rates and acquisition multiples. The choices on operating systems, revenue management, AI virtual agents, and online marketing made in the next twelve months are how that gap gets built in my opinion.
My coaching is… treat your vendor selection accordingly.
