Dallas pricing snapshot
These estimates are for early budgeting, not offers. Dallas has a broad operator set, but delivery path, density and submarket can matter more than the metro-wide headline price.
| Requirement | Planning range | Budget assumption |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2U | $100 to $240/mo | Basic power and internet allocation |
| Quarter or half cabinet | $700 to $1,425/mo | Shared cabinet environment |
| Standard full cabinet | $1,000 to $2,100/mo | Typical 3 to 5 kW commit |
| 10 to 20 kW high-density cabinet | $1,700 to $4,500/mo | Cooling method must be validated |
| Private cage | $4,000 to $17,100/mo | Four-rack starting profile; density drives spread |
| 250 kW | $145 to $195/kW-mo | Enterprise wholesale planning band |
| 500 kW | $130 to $180/kW-mo | Assumes scale and multiyear term |
| 1 MW | $115 to $165/kW-mo | Contiguous capacity and ramp required |
Method: public 2026 cabinet and wholesale market benchmarks combined with density and scale assumptions. Taxes, network, cross-connects and one-time costs are excluded. These bands are directional and must be replaced by written provider quotes. How that rate is billed, committed against metered and the derating that shrinks a circuit, is covered in how colocation power is billed.
The published figures these planning bands are built from, including asking rents across eight markets, land and power costs by metro, and what a stabilized megawatt sold for, are collected on the data center pricing benchmarks page.
Current Dallas availability snapshot
DFW's large construction pipeline is not the same as uncommitted inventory. We verify the capacity block, utility or construction dependencies and service-ready date before presenting an option as available.
| Option | Footprint | Usable power | Cooling support | Estimated delivery | Last verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anonymized cabinet search | 1 to 4 cabinets | 5 to 80 kW | Air or containment; liquid by review | Target 30 to 90 days | Not yet verified |
| Anonymized cage search | 4 to 20 cabinets | 20 to 250 kW | Density-specific engineering review | Target 60 to 150 days | Not yet verified |
| Anonymized suite search | 250 kW to 1 MW | Contracted usable kW to be defined | Air, RDHx or liquid-ready by facility | Target 4 to 18 months | Not yet verified |
What the all-in Dallas cost includes
Cabinet and power
Normalize allocated power, usable IT load, metering and overage language. A cheaper per-kW quote can provide less deployable power.
A/B and cooling
Validate dual-feed assumptions, reserved capacity and the cooling approach at the required rack density.
Bandwidth and operations
Add cross-connects, carrier ports, cloud access, remote hands and any after-hours minimums.
Install and escalators
Include cages, cabinets, cabling, turn-up, deposits, annual increases and any utility or power pass-through.
Nearby and strategic alternatives
Austin or San Antonio can suit Texas continuity strategies, while Houston may fit Gulf-region access. Phoenix and Atlanta are useful comparative markets for larger capacity, subject to latency, staffing and network design.
The market fundamentals behind a Dallas quote
Dallas-Fort Worth is the fastest-growing large market in the country and the only one of the top four where asking rents did not move last year. For a buyer signing a multiyear term, that combination is unusual and worth understanding.
| Measure | Figure | What it means for your quote |
|---|---|---|
| Total inventory | 1,249.4 MW | Third-largest US colocation market, up 43.7% year over year |
| Asking rent change | Unchanged | The only top-four market that did not reprice in Q1 2026 |
| Overall vacancy | 2.4% | The loosest of the top four markets, though still historically tight |
| Net absorption | 470.8 MW | Up 424.0 MW year over year, an outsized swing |
| Under construction | About 700 MW | Roughly 94.5% preleased |
| Industrial power | About $0.0972/kWh | Roughly 23% below the national average |
Sources: CBRE Dallas-Fort Worth market profile and CBRE Global Data Center Trends 2026. CBRE has published the under-construction figure as both about 700 MW at 94.5% preleased and a record-high 716.7 MW at 88% preleased in different periods; both are shown in the source material and the difference is most likely a quarter's movement rather than a revision. Recently completed and current construction activity is expected to roughly double the size of the market by the end of 2026.
Asking rents held steady while the market absorbed 470.8 MW and nearly all construction was preleased. That is not a soft market, it is a market where new supply arrived fast enough to keep pace with demand. The risk for a buyer is that this is a timing artifact: if absorption stays at these levels and the pipeline tightens, flat becomes the exception rather than the trend. A longer term is worth more here than in a market already repricing.
Power economics and the transmission question
Dallas is the strongest power story of the four largest markets, and the reason large requirements keep landing here. The constraint is transmission and queue access rather than generation cost.
| Input | Dallas-Fort Worth | Compared with Northern Virginia |
|---|---|---|
| Industrial power | About $0.0972/kWh | Northern Virginia runs $0.095 to $0.13/kWh |
| Vacancy | 2.4% | Northern Virginia sits at 0.3% |
| Rate direction | Unchanged | Chicago rose 14.7% over the same period |
| Growth | Up 43.7% year over year | The fastest inventory growth of the top four |
Two constraints shape delivery. The market has introduced new controls restricting entry into the power queue, which means speculative queue positions are harder to hold and a provider's claimed date needs verifying. And further expansion depends on the Oncor Regional Transmission Plan to add high-voltage lines and upgrade existing infrastructure. An additional 3 GW of greenfield development is planned on top of the current pipeline, but that capacity is contingent on transmission work completing.
The incentive that matters for a data center deployment is the state sales and use tax exemption on qualifying equipment, which has specific investment and job thresholds and a certification process. Confirm qualification with your tax advisor rather than assuming it applies, and model your case without it as a check.
Where in the Metroplex you actually land
Dallas core and Infomart corridor
The historic carrier and interconnection center. The answer for peering, cloud on-ramps and latency-sensitive workloads rather than for the cheapest megawatts.
Richardson and Plano
North corridor enterprise colocation with established multi-tenant facilities. Well suited to cabinet and cage requirements with solid carrier choice.
Fort Worth and west
Where land and power support campus-scale development. Larger contiguous blocks, longer delivery timelines, and the corridor most exposed to transmission upgrade timing.
Outer Metroplex
Where much of the planned greenfield capacity is staged. Availability the core cannot match, at the cost of drive time and carrier depth.
The Metroplex is geographically large, and the difference between a core interconnection site and a western campus is material for both price and network design. Decide which of the two you are buying before you compare quotes, because they are different products.
What actually moves your Dallas number
| Variable | Direction | What to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Term length | Worth more here than in a repricing market | What does a longer term lock in while rents are flat? |
| Committed power | Larger commitments price lower per kW | What does the next tier up cost? |
| Corridor | Core interconnection against western campus | Am I paying for network density or for megawatts? |
| Power date | Queue controls make claimed dates worth testing | Is this energized capacity, a held queue position, or a plan? |
| Rack density | Above roughly 20 kW per rack, cooling drives cost | Is the density supported, and at what premium? |
| Escalator | The number that matters most when rents are flat | Is it fixed or CPI linked, and is there a cap? |
Flat asking rents make the escalator and the renewal clause the most important terms in the document, because they decide what happens after the market stops being flat. Convert both quotes to cost per usable kW, confirm the power basis, and model the escalator to term end. The pricing benchmarks page carries the published figures to check against.
Get a verified shortlist with capacity, normalized pricing and deployment timelines.
Send the initial and future power profile, rack density, network needs and required date. We will test actual fit before comparing economics.