How Much Do Escape Rooms Cost to Open? How Do You Start One?

There are more than 2,000 escape rooms across the United States, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t space for an escape room of your very own. Escape rooms are certainly very engaging and they can attract people from all around, but if you want to start an escape room business, what should you consider?

First, you should ask yourself, “How much do escape rooms cost exactly?” The exact cause of your escape room will depend on a variety of factors such as the size of the facility, the complexity of the puzzles involved in the escape, and so on. Of course, you will need more than money to start an escape room business. 

You will also need to come up with a good business plan, form a business entity, get all the right licenses, and so on. Keep reading this escape room guide and learn more about the cost of opening an escape room as well as what else you need to consider to start an escape room business.

How Much Do Escape Rooms Cost to Open?

As mentioned before, calculating the cost of an escape room is not as simple as you might think. There is no one cost. Instead, the exact cost will depend on a large variety of factors.

Suppose that you want to rent out or buy a building to house your escape room. Depending on the size of this building, you may end up spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on it. The larger the building is, the more you should expect to pay. 

You will end up paying even more if you decide to construct a building from scratch. While this is more expensive than renting out a building, building your own escape room will allow you to have more freedom with the floor plan and it will make the room more engaging for visitors depending on how you design it. Whether you buy, rent, or build your escape room, you should have a large budget on hand as you will likely spend many thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands of dollars:

Sorting Out Your Finances

However, you shouldn’t let these costs get you down. While starting an escape room is certainly a large investment, many escape rooms often make back all the money that went into them, if not more. All you need to do is make sure you have enough money to start the escape room in the first place. 

The last thing you want is to spend every last penny on an escape room. Instead of risking your finances, try to set aside a hefty chunk of money that you can use solely for setting up your new escape room. That way, this budget won’t interfere with the rest of your finances and you won’t have to worry so much about potentially losing all of your money. 

Keep in mind that while the building your escape room will exist in will take up a large bit of your budget, it is not the only thing that you will need to spend money on. 

Other Things You Need to Invest in for Your Escape Room

Once you have the perfect building for your escape room, that building will be more or less an empty shell at first. The next thing you need to do is start considering what kind of equipment you need to bring your escape room to life. There are all different types of escape rooms and no escape room is the same. 

This is important because customers want to go to an escape room for a unique experience and not one that they’ve already seen in another escape room. For that reason, you will need to make quite an investment in your decor, equipment, and other materials to make sure that your escape room is unique. 

Escape rooms need to have a particular atmosphere to match the story that they’re trying to bring to life. For that to be possible, you will need to invest in some basic equipment such as lighting, paint, wallpaper, flooring, and so on. If you want your escape room to look like an old, abandoned house, you will need to design the interior of the building to look that way. 

This will involve fiddling with the walls, floors, and other aspects to make the building look older than it is. And what is an escape room without a puzzle or two? Depending on the complexity of the puzzles in your escape room, you may need to spend quite a lot of money to install them. 

Other puzzles, on the other hand, may not cost you much at all and may only consist of finding a key or another object:

Budgeting and Equipment 

If you don’t have a very large budget, it is, of course, better that you stick with puzzles and decor that won’t destroy your finances. At the same time, you don’t want your escape room to seem cheap or mediocre. 

These days, escape rooms are more advanced than ever. Many of them use virtual reality, projectors, special lights, optical illusions, and other engaging factors to impress their customers. If you can’t compete with these high-tech escape rooms, your own escape room might suffer as a result. 

For that reason, you should try to afford the best equipment you can without going overboard on your budget. If you find that your budget isn’t large enough to provide the escape room with enough engaging material, it might be wise to wait and increase your budget before opening the escape room. The last thing you want is to open an escape room only for it to be a total flop.

Once you have all the materials, you will find that your escape room will finally come to life. Before opening your escape room, be sure that all of the equipment works. Then, you should be good to go.

But besides the cost of opening an escape room, what else should you consider before opening one to make sure that it will be a success? 

Create a Business Plan For Your Escape Room

You can’t open a business without first creating a plan, no matter what kind of business you plan to open. If you try to open a business without a plan, you’ll find that the business in question will soon flop and go out of business. This is because, without a plan, you will have no idea where you want your business to go, what you want it to accomplish, or anything else. 

Instead, your escape room will be more of a makeshift business that can barely stand on its own. But if you have a solid business plan, it will be an entirely different story. It is best to have as detailed a business plan as possible. 

That way, it will be easy to follow along with your business over the years and it will also be easier to keep it on track. For example, one of the first things you should add to your business plan is the name of your business. The name of your escape room is more important than you might expect. 

If you name it something dull or uncreative, people aren’t going to be very interested in visiting your escape room. On the other hand, if you name it something unique or strange, people obviously will want to know more about it and what makes the escape room special.

You will also want to avoid naming your escape room anything similar to another business, especially other escape rooms. 

If you do this, it might be hard for people to find your escape room online. Instead of finding your escape room, entries for other companies might come up instead if the name for your escape room is too similar:

The Details

For example, The Great Escape Room Orlando is a popular escape room in Florida and you wouldn’t want to jeopardize your own escape room by calling it something similar. 

Besides the name, you will also want to think about how much money it takes to keep your escape room open over a certain period of time. As mentioned before, you’ll need to put in a large chunk of money to open your escape room. However, once it’s open, you will need to keep putting money into it to keep it open. 

For example, the cost of electricity will likely take up a large chunk of your budget, especially if your escape room is very high-tech. You will also need to think about how much you are going to pay your employees and how many employees you need. If you only plan on hiring one or two employees to help out or guide your customers, you might not need to pay that much. 

But if you plan on hiring actors for the escape room, you will need to expand your budget. Of course, if you don’t plan ahead, all of these extra and continuous costs could easily take your escape room out of business. So, how can you make sure that your escape room makes enough money to not only stay in business but thrive?

How to Make a Profit on Your Escape Room

The first year of opening your escape room for business will likely be the hardest. This is because your escape room does not yet have a reputation and people won’t know if it’s worth visiting or not. Some people might not even know that your escape room exists. 

Of course, if there are not a lot of people visiting your escape room, you’ll never be able to make enough money to make up for the cost of maintaining the room. For that reason, in your business plan, you will want to think ahead about all the ways you can market your escape room and make sure you attract plenty of business. You can do this in a variety of ways. 

For example, you can put out a billboard or two around your town or city to advertise your new escape room. The more people that see your escape room’s name, the more people will keep it in mind even if they don’t plan on visiting any escape rooms right away. Advertising online is also very important:

Marketing Your Escape Room

Billions of people use the internet every day, so it only makes sense that digital advertising would do wonders for your business’s success. Besides advertising your business, you will also want to keep track of how much you are charging your customers. If you’re not charging each customer enough upon entry, you’ll never be able to keep up with the cost needed to keep the escape room open. 

For that reason, you’ll need to calculate how much you need to charge each customer to break even. You should also make sure that your escape room is entertaining and high-quality. That way, your customers will be more likely to recommend it to their friends and family. 

This, of course, will send more traffic more way along with more money to keep your escape room open and thriving.

What You Need to Know About Escape Room Businesses

How much do escape rooms cost, you might ask? It all depends on what kind of escape room you want to open. If you plan on opening a small escape room, you might not have to pay that much in terms of rent. 

However, besides renting or buying a place to house your escape room, you’ll also need to consider the cost of materials and equipment to bring your escape room’s atmosphere to life. Learn more from the other blogs on our website.