Plug-and-Play vs Warm Shell vs Bare Shell Offices: What Each Means and What Each Costs

Plug-and-play office space, sold in Gurgaon as fully furnished office space, is a wired and serviced office you move into with laptops and nothing else. A warm shell and a bare shell are the same floor at earlier stages: you finish the first and build the second. The labels mostly say who has already paid: you, the landlord, or a provider who recovers the cost in the monthly fee.

AIHP sells plug-and-play floors in managed office space in Gurgaon, so weigh what follows with that in mind. The bare-shell figures come from Colliers' Delhi occupier guide and Knight Frank's 2026 fit-out guide, not from AIHP. The fit-out cost guide has the wider cost detail.

Three handover conditions, defined

Bare shell

An empty floor: structure, slab and base-building services stopped at the core, with no ceilings, flooring, partitions or distribution inside. The tenant designs, permits and builds everything within its area. Colliers lists restoration to shell among the exit obligations a Delhi lease may impose.

Warm shell

A floor with part of the work done: basic services and finishes in place, typically ceilings, flooring and service points, with the tenant completing the rest. It is the vaguest of the three labels, and we would trust it least without the landlord's written handover specification, which decides what "basic" means.

Plug-and-play

A floor already built, furnished and wired, with air conditioning, power and internet working. The provider owns the fit-out, maintains it and charges a monthly fee that recovers it. You bring laptops.

What is installed in each

Colliers gives its cycle time as a rough estimate for 20,000 sq ft and says sanctions, imported goods, location, design and the contracting method all move it.

Time to move in

A bare shell takes longest. Colliers puts construction to move-in at 20 to 30 weeks for a Class A office in Delhi. Knight Frank estimates that design-and-build delivery shortens projects by 20 to 30% compared with sequential delivery, which helps, though the wait remains.

The rent-free period may not cover it. A typical rent-free period in Delhi is two to six months, while 20 to 30 weeks is about 4.6 to 6.9 months. With two months rent-free, a 20-week build leaves about 2.6 months of rent to pay on a floor you cannot use, and a 30-week build leaves nearly five. At ₹100 per sq ft a month on 10,000 sq ft, an illustrative rent, that is ₹26 lakh to ₹49 lakh.

Warm-shell timing is the gap in the data. No source we found publishes a typical number, so ask the landlord for the programme and the handover date in writing. Plug-and-play takes the build off your calendar. AIHP quotes 60 days to deliver a custom floor, and a floor that is already built can be quicker.

Cost and capex compared

For a bare shell, Colliers puts a Class A fit-out in Delhi at ₹3,500 to ₹5,000 per sq ft, which is ₹3.5 crore to ₹5 crore on 10,000 sq ft. Knight Frank's 2026 guide runs from about ₹2,200 at basic specification to ₹7,000 at high spec once converted to rupees. The same guide says Delhi landlords typically do not contribute to the fit-out, and that tenants prefer to do their own because landlords' cost of borrowing is higher. If the floor already exists and you only need a refresh, office renovation cost in India prices partial work line by line.

Part of that bill moves to the landlord with a warm shell. JLL's Asia Pacific split puts builders' works at 38% of a typical fit-out budget and mechanical and electrical at 25%, so those two lines, 63% together, are what a warm-shell handover can remove. How much it removes depends on the specification, so price every line the landlord has not done.

Plug-and-play removes the upfront bill but not the cost. Colliers' India notes say that when a landlord funds the capex it is amortised into the rent, and a provider does the same through its fee. AIHP's agreements run nine years with a three-year lock-in, so what you buy is cash flow and speed. Colliers puts the typical lock-in on a conventional Delhi lease at 50 to 60% of the term, which is 4.5 to 5.4 years on nine, so AIHP's three is the shorter commitment. Whether the total over the term comes out higher or lower depends on the numbers. Compare all-in cost over the lock-in, not the first-year bill.

Exit works the other way round. Colliers lists restoration to shell among typical exit obligations, and Knight Frank puts reinstatement in India at about $30 per sq m, roughly ₹250 per sq ft, or ₹25 lakh on 10,000 sq ft. With plug-and-play the provider owns the fit-out, so that bill is the provider's.

Which suits which team

A bare shell suits a team that wants a layout nobody else makes, expects to stay for a typical five to nine year lease and has both capital and a project team. On Colliers' figures that is ₹3.5 crore to ₹5 crore on 10,000 sq ft, plus the restoration bill at exit.

A warm shell fits a team that wants to design its own floor without paying for base services, provided the landlord's specification is written down and the handover date carries a remedy for delay.

Plug-and-play suits a team that needs to be working within about two months and would rather not fund capital works. It does not suit a team that cannot forecast headcount for the lock-in, because AIHP's is three years. A serviced office or coworking fits that case better, and serviced office vs managed office compares all four models.

What to ask for in each handover

The managed office RFP template has 40 questions for the plug-and-play row.

What plug-and-play means at AIHP

AIHP's plug-and-play floors fold eight things into one per-seat price: fit-out, furniture, an on-site butler, daily housekeeping, air conditioning and lighting under a running warranty, electricity, internet and facilities management. Teams start at 20 seats, with zero upfront capex, and the fully furnished office cost guide itemises each one.

Plug-and-play can be custom. VANSUN Media Tech moved 150 seats into a custom managed office in Sector 32, delivered in 60 days with no upfront capex, and its case study has the detail.

Read the WDTS case study How a team that needed a purpose-built lab got one inside a managed office, then added a second floor. Read the case study

Talk to AIHP about a ready floor

Send your headcount and the date you need to be working through the contact page or to leasing@aihp.in. AIHP starts at 20 seats.