To compare the cost of shelving to filing cabinets, determine the cost per filing inch of each. For example, if two sections of 36" wide double faced shelving cost $1,407.00 then the cost per filing inch is $1.40 ($1,407.00 divided by 1,008 filing inches = $1.40). If a four drawer vertical filing cabinet of comparable quality costs $150.00 then 10 cost $1,500 and the cost per filing inch is $1.50 ($1,500.00 divided by 1,000 filing inches = $1.50).

Shelving saves space. Most vertical style filing cabinets are purchased with four drawers (rather than five) because the shortest filing clerk has to be able to reach up, over and down into the top drawer in order to use the top drawer which often times cannot be accomplished using a five drawer vertical filing cabinet. However, a clerk who can use 4 drawers of a vertical filing cabinet can easily use six shelves of shelving and almost always seven. Therefore shelving allows better use of "air space".

In addition, filing cabinets require the user to pull a drawer out in order to use them. Consequently, the floor space dedicated to a filing cabinet is not the footprint of the cabinet on the floor but the space taken by the cabinet with a fully extended drawer – the dedicated floor space is almost double its footprint. The dedicated floor space for shelving, on the other hand, is only the footprint because shelves do not pull out. (The access space for a person standing in front of a fully extended file drawer and the access space for a person using shelving is the same.)

To compare the dedicated floor space for shelving with the dedicated floor space for filing cabinets, consider the following example. A letter size four drawer vertical filing cabinet takes up 26" x 16" of floor space. When 25 more inches are added to accommodate a fully extended drawer, plus 24 more inches for access in front of the drawer, 26" x 16" becomes 75" x 16" for each filing cabinet. Therefore, a filing cabinet requires 8.33 sq. ft. of dedicated floor space (75 x 16 = 1200 / 144 = 8.33) and ten filing cabinets would require 83.3 sq. ft. of dedicated floor space. Two double faced sections of letter size shelving hold the equivalent of ten four drawer filing cabinets but only require 27" x 74" of floor space. When 24" of access space are added to each side of double faced shelving, then 27" x 74" becomes 75" x 74". Therefore, a two section double faced range of shelving with access space on both sides requires only 38.5 sq. ft. of floor space (75 x 74 = 5550 / 144 = 38.5) – less than half the space required for filing cabinets.

In summary, the use of shelving will effectively double the number of filing inches available in a given square foot of floor space or conversely the use of shelving requires approximately half the floor space of filing cabinets because with shelving you do not need to dedicate floor space for a fully extended file drawer and because you can go to higher levels with shelving compared to filing cabinets.

Worker productivity is higher with shelving compared to filing cabinets. Employees who use shelving can file, retrieve and re-file folders much quicker with shelving because they can find the location of any folder faster (filing cabinets hide folders and their indexing). In addition, employees do not have the wasted motions of opening a drawer to retrieve a folder, pushing the drawer back in after a folder is retrieved, then opening a drawer to return a folder and closing the drawer after a folder is re-filed.

Shelving is safer than filing cabinets because there are no moving parts. Closing file cabinet drawers can pinch fingers and it is possible for an extended top drawer full of folders to make a filing cabinet tip and fall if the other drawers are empty.

Color-coding file folders in shelving works better than color-coding file folders in filing cabinets, which hide the folders. Misfiles cannot be as easily spotted in filing cabinets as they can be in shelving.