Independent. Buyer side. North American coverage.
Colocation, GPU and Cloud Placement
Data Center Consulting for Developers and Investors
Metro Colo Advisory places colocation, bare metal, GPU capacity, private cloud and connectivity with providers across North America, and advises developers, operators and investors on what a site can serve before capital is committed. Placement is free to the client and paid by the provider. Consulting is a paid engagement. We do not design anything, we do not operate anything, and we are on the buyer’s side of this market.
No cost on placement. Consulting is priced separately. Response within 24 hours.
- Independent and Provider Agnostic
- Colocation, GPU and Private Cloud
- Mid-Market and Enterprise
- North American Coverage
Buying Infrastructure Is Hard Because You Do It Rarely
Data center space, GPU capacity and private cloud all get bought infrequently and priced privately. A company might sign one agreement every few years, in a market where rates, available capacity and contract terms all move continuously, and where published pricing rarely matches what gets contracted.
That leaves most buyers without a reference point. Not because anyone is withholding it, but because the information sits with the people who transact daily, and a company placing its first deployment is not one of them.
We are in that market continuously. Working live requirements with operators is how we learn what capacity actually exists, what it contracts at, and where the advertised answer differs from the deliverable one.
That is the gap we fill. Not because going direct is wrong, but because it should be a choice made with a benchmark rather than one made without.
Metro Colo Advisory was the lead source in Data Center Knowledge in August 2026, on the gap between available data center capacity and capacity that can actually support AI density. Read the article.
Placing AI or High Density Infrastructure
Most facilities were built for 5 to 15 kilowatts a rack. Current rack-scale GPU platforms draw 140 to 160, and very few facilities can serve that. We evaluate at the hall level rather than the provider level and run live searches across the operator base. See our AI and GPU colocation guide.
Renting GPU Capacity
You need reserved H100, H200 or B200 capacity, and every provider quotes its own rate card. We benchmark your requirement against what the market actually pays and negotiate the terms, at no cost to you. See our GPU as a service guide.
Moving Off the Public Cloud
Your cloud bill keeps growing for workloads that run the same every day. Steady workloads often cost less in colocation or on bare metal, and we price the move against what you pay now, at no cost to you. See our cloud repatriation guide.
Deciding What to Build
You control land or a building with power secured, and nobody has told you who would lease it. That is a consulting engagement rather than a placement, and it is a different service with a different fee structure. See our data center consulting practice.
The first three are placement work and cost you nothing. The fourth is a paid engagement. If you are not sure which applies, say what you are working on and we will tell you.
Data Center, GPU and Cloud Sourcing, Free to You
We work exclusively for the buyer, not for any operator. We take a defined requirement to the market, benchmark it against what comparable deployments are actually contracting at, and come back with options that fit, including an honest recommendation on which one we would take and why.
Our fee is paid by whichever provider the client chooses, as a standard part of their channel partner program. It does not affect client pricing and it does not come out of the client’s budget.
This is not a lead form that distributes your contact details to ten sales teams. It is an advisory relationship with someone who is in this market every day. Our placement process sets out how it works in detail.
Independent
We hold channel relationships across the market and recommend what fits the requirement, not what pays more. If the best fit is a provider we do not work with, we tell you.
No recommendation is influenced by who pays more, because the answer is the same either way.
Wholesale and high density
A growing share of our work is wholesale colocation and AI infrastructure, from a few dense cabinets through multi-megawatt rack-scale deployments. We evaluate whether a specific hall can serve a specific requirement rather than taking an operator’s word for it.
Market current
Not list price. Not the rate on an operator’s website. What comparable deployments are contracting at right now. That benchmark changes the dynamic of every negotiation, and our colocation pricing guide covers what the published figures leave out.
How It Works — Three Simple Steps
From first conversation to signed contract. We handle everything. You make the final call.
Step 1: Tell Us What You Need
Fill out our free assessment form. It takes about 60 seconds. Tell us your current setup, your power requirements, your timeline, and your compliance needs. The more you share, the better we can match you. If you're not sure about the details, we'll figure it out together on our first call.
Step 2: We Go To Work
We take your requirements to the operators who can actually serve them and come back within 72 hours with 2-3 options that fit your situation. Not a generic list. A curated shortlist with trade-offs explained and a clear recommendation on which we'd choose for your specific needs.
Step 3: You Choose — We Handle The Rest
You pick the option that makes sense for your business. We introduce you to the provider, stay involved through contract review to make sure the terms are fair, and make sure you don't sign anything that doesn't serve your interests. The provider pays our commission as a standard part of their channel partner program. You pay nothing.
You’re never obligated to choose any of the options we present. If none of them feel right we go back and find better ones. Our job isn’t done until you’re satisfied, or until you’ve decided colocation isn’t the right move right now.
Ready to see what the market looks like for your specific situation?
Data Center Consulting
Alongside the placement work we run paid engagements for developers, operators and investors. Different clients, different questions. These are priced as projects and paid by the client.
The question is almost always the same. Someone controls a site, a building or an operating asset, and no one has assessed what it can actually serve or who would take it.
Developers deciding what to build
You hold a site with zoning and power secured, and the design reflects standard industrial construction because that is what the team knows. Nobody has evaluated whether the completed building attracts data center tenants at all. We assess the site against what operators require and what tenants need, and deliver a specification recommendation before the design locks.
Investors evaluating an acquisition
Real estate diligence covers title and structure. Engineering covers mechanical and electrical condition. Neither answers whether the facility can hold and grow its tenant base against current market alternatives. We assess the asset against what tenants in that market are evaluating today.
Operators with capacity that is not filling
The facilities are sound and the market is short of capacity, but the space is not moving. We assess what buyers in those markets actually evaluate, diagnose where the visibility is being lost, and deliver a plan with priority order.
Engagements typically run from $50,000 to $195,000 depending on scope, with monthly retainers available for ongoing work. Full detail is on the data center consulting page.
What the Market Looks Like Right Now
The infrastructure decisions companies make in the next 12-24 months will define their cost structure for the next decade. Here’s what the market looks like right now.
$250/kW+
True all-in colocation rate for mid-market deployments in primary markets in 2026 once power delivery, cross-connects, and services are factored in. Most published benchmarks cite only the base capacity rate. The real number is higher.
35%
Annual growth rate of AI inference workloads driving the highest-density colocation demand the market has ever seen.
30–60%
Infrastructure cost reduction companies achieve when moving stable predictable workloads from AWS or Azure to dedicated colocation. The savings are real, for the right workloads.
3x
The rate of cloud repatriation has tripled since 2023 as enterprise IT leaders across financial services, healthcare, and fintech move stable workloads off public cloud. The economics have shifted, colocation now wins on cost, performance, and control.
Capacity is as tight as it has ever been. Vacancy in primary markets sits near historic lows, preleasing has extended into capacity scheduled for delivery in 2027 and beyond, and power delivery timelines for new capacity now run two to three years minimum. Near-term availability comes from existing inventory rather than from anything being built to order.
At the same time the economics of public cloud have shifted for companies with stable workloads. The decisions made in the next twelve to twenty-four months will set cost structures for the rest of the decade, and the buyers who benchmark properly before they sign are the ones who look back well on them.
Find out where you stand in the current market.
Built for Mid-Market and Enterprise. Across Every Industry That Runs on Infrastructure
Whether you’re a hedge fund that needs sub-millisecond latency to the exchanges or a healthcare system that can’t compromise on HIPAA compliance. We know your world and we know which facilities serve it best.
Hedge Funds and Financial Services
NYC's financial ecosystem runs through Equinix NY4 in Secaucus. We know every provider in that ecosystem, the latency benchmarks, the compliance requirements, and the pricing that serious financial firms actually pay, not list price.
Healthcare and Life Sciences
Where compliance isn't optional. HIPAA certification, BAA agreements, SOC 2 Type II. We only recommend facilities that have already done the compliance work so you don't have to. One audit finding in the wrong facility costs more than a decade of colo fees.
Law Firms
Where client confidentiality is everything. Physical control over your hardware. Carrier-neutral connectivity. Facilities that understand the confidentiality requirements of legal data. We know which facilities law firms trust, and why.
Fintech and Startups
Where infrastructure cost has become a board-level question. You moved to cloud because it was fast. Now the bill is growing faster than revenue. We give you a free first read on the cloud versus colocation math and show you what moving stable workloads would actually save.
Media and Entertainment
Carrier-neutral facilities with 100+ networks give you competitive bandwidth pricing that AWS and Azure simply can't match at scale. We know which facilities serve media workloads best and how to negotiate bandwidth terms that grow with you.
Don't see your industry?
If your business runs on infrastructure, we can help, whether you’re in the NYC metro area or evaluating facilities nationally.
The fundamentals are the same regardless of vertical.
Cloud Repatriation: When Dedicated Infrastructure Beats Cloud
Cloud made sense while your workloads were still changing. Once they settle into steady use, you are paying a premium for elasticity you no longer need, and paying again on every gigabyte that leaves the network.
Companies moving stable workloads to dedicated infrastructure typically cut the cost of those workloads by 30 to 60 percent. The biggest saving is often egress rather than compute, and bare metal can land it within a quarter with no capital.
Dropbox saved $74 million over two years, and its gross margin roughly doubled on the way to its IPO. 37signals cut its annual cloud bill from $3.2 million to $1.3 million and projects more than $10 million saved over five years.
These aren’t hyperscalers with armies of engineers. They’re companies that ran the math and made a rational infrastructure decision. We run that math for mid-market and enterprise companies every day.
Tell us what you spend on cloud and what you run. Within 24 hours you get a free first read on whether repatriation fits and what dedicated infrastructure would cost. For seven-figure cloud spend, the full scenario analysis is a fixed-fee engagement.
If the numbers make sense, we help you make the move, and the placement costs you nothing because the provider you choose pays us. If they don’t, we tell you that too. Our cloud repatriation guide covers how it works.
You Might Be Ready To Repatriate If:
- Your monthly cloud spend exceeds $30,000
- Your workloads run 24/7 at consistent usage
- Your data has compliance or residency requirements
- Your egress fees are growing faster than your revenue
- Your CFO has started asking about infrastructure costs
- You're running AI workloads that need sustained GPU access
You Should Stay On Cloud If:
- Your traffic spikes unpredictably by 10x or more
- You're pre-revenue or very early stage
- Your team has no internal infrastructure experience
- You need global distribution across 20+ regions
- Your workloads change dramatically month to month
The right answer isn’t always repatriation. Sometimes staying on cloud is the right call, and when it is, we will tell you. An advisor who only tells you what you want to hear isn’t an advisor worth having.
Thinking about moving off cloud? Tell us what you are spending, or run a first estimate with our cloud vs colocation calculator.
Where to Start
Tell us what you are working on, what is driving the timing, and we will come back with something useful. If we are not the right fit, we will say so.
Full Assessment
For companies ready to explore their options
Fill out our free assessment form and tell us about your current setup, requirements, and timeline. We’ll come back within 72 hours with a curated shortlist of providers that fit your specific needs — with honest recommendations and current market pricing.
Contract Review
For companies already in colocation
Already have a colo contract? Send it to us. We’ll review it against current market rates and tell you within 24 hours whether you’re paying fair market or above it. The majority of the contracts we review are above market — often significantly.
Talk to Us
For consulting engagements and anything the other two do not cover
Anything else, send it here. Tell us what you are dealing with and what is driving the timing. It comes to the principal directly, and you will have a first read within 24 hours.
We hold channel relationships with every major operator, so our recommendations are based on what fits the requirement rather than who we are aligned with.
