You can purchase used Steelcase chairs from office liquidation companies for a reasonable price (although "reasonable" might be in the eye of the beholder). I purchased a V2 for around $400 and have been using it daily for 1.5 years. It's in great condition and it's easily the most comfortable office chair I've sat it.
If you can, find an office liquidation sale as it happens. Oct 2019 - prepandemic - 2 regional banks merged, and one office was put in to "sale" mode. A local company came in to manage selling everything (or.... they may have just bought it all themselves up front for a song then resold?)
I picked up 16 Steelcase Amia chairs (plus 2 others). Had them delivered to my office. They took away 10 old crappy chairs we had to the dump. Total price was $635. For 18 chairs.
It was a bargain, to be sure. I'm not sure what effect covid will have had on the whole 'office furniture liquidation' process, but there's likely bargains to be had before things get to the 'office liquidation company' warehouse.
IIRC it was listed on craigslist and a Facebook marketplace post.
yeah, it was an incredible deal. the delivery was just icing on the cake. I wish I'd had room to take a few more. That said, I missed the first day of the liquidation. There were around... 30 chairs left, and I think I got the best of what was left. Having them all match was an important part, as I was pimping out our coworking space and wanted things to match :)
This, 100%. My current company moved offices and bought new chairs that the interior designer thought looked better in the new space, so ~50 perfectly good aerons found their way to one of these liquidators.
Many of these liquidation companies with steam clean the chairs for you too, at least in my experience, so the chair will look almost new even if it's fairly old. And a high quality office chair is something that really lasts for quite a while. My used Leap that I got for $150 3 years ago from a liquidation company was manufactured in the mid 90s and I find it every bit as comfortable as the brand new aerons and other chairs that I've used in offices.
