How we choose
Every point below can be checked by someone who does not work for the company. That is the whole test. If a claim can only be verified by taking a sales manager's word for it, it does not score.
The fifteen points
Each operator is inspected against the same list. Nothing is weighted, because weighting is where a ranking quietly becomes an opinion wearing a lab coat. An operator either clears a point or it does not, and the count is printed on its card.
The full checklist
- Price published without a quote call
- Full price ladder, not just an entry rate
- Climate control on every unit
- Temperature range stated in numbers
- Humidity control stated
- 24 hour access
- Biometric or coded self entry
- On site CCTV
- Insurance available
- Pickup offered
- Packing materials offered
- Month to month contract
- Branches in more than one district
- Street address published
- Specialist tiers beyond household goods
What we do not score
Star ratings on platforms an operator can seed. Awards with no traceable jury. Photographs of a clean corridor, which every facility can produce and which tell you nothing about the corridor in August. Length of time in business, which we report but do not reward, because an older building is not automatically a better one.
Why exactly three
A shortlist of twenty is a way of refusing to choose. It protects the publisher and leaves the reader exactly where they started. Three forces us to state which compromises we think are acceptable, and it makes us accountable for the one that came fourth, which is why we always name it.
Where the addresses come from
Where an operator publishes a street address or an embedded map, we use its own coordinate. Where it publishes only a district, we plot the district centre and label the pin approximate. We would rather show you an honest area than invent a precise doorstep, and we would rather say which is which than let you assume.
What money cannot buy here
A position, a badge, a mention, or the removal of a competitor. Three operators have offered. We publish corrections free and quickly, dated, for anyone who sends evidence, including operators we ranked badly.
When this changes
Every category is re-inspected twice a year, and immediately whenever an operator publishes a new price ladder or opens a site. The last full pass was August 2026. If a winner drops a point, it drops off the podium and we say so on the page rather than editing it out.