The quick answer
For most trips, the cheapest and nearest option is the coin locker already inside the station you're standing in. A small one runs roughly ¥300-400 a day, rising to ¥600-900 for something large enough to swallow a suitcase — consistently less than any app-based network's flat per-bag rate. Reach for a shop-based service such as Radical Storage only when the lockers nearby are full, the bag is oversized, or a station's lockers have been shut down entirely. Both routes are covered below, station by station.
What a locker costs
Coin locker pricing follows a fairly consistent national pattern: small compartments around ¥300-400 a day, medium ones ¥400-600, large ones ¥600-900, with Tokyo sitting toward the top of that range. Some operators charge per calendar day rather than per 24-hour block, so a bag dropped off late at night can trigger a second day's fee within hours. Most lockers hold luggage for up to three days; after that, staff move the contents to a lost-and-found style office, so collect well before then. Older, key-operated lockers still take only 100-yen coins — worth carrying a stack as backup — while a growing share of newer touch-panel machines accept Suica or Pasmo directly.
Finding a free one
Two free tools take the guesswork out of it. Suica Coin Locker Search terminals at Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Shinagawa and Tokyo Station show a colour-coded, real-time map of nearby lockers — green for plenty, orange for limited — and the Japanese-language Coin Locker Navi site does something similar for stations and sights nationwide. Timing matters too: turning up not long after first trains, once overnight users have cleared their lockers but before the day's arrivals claim them, gives the best odds of finding one empty. Weekends and public holidays are when the large sizes disappear fastest, so anyone travelling with a proper suitcase should have a fallback in mind.
Tokyo Station's locker maze
Tokyo Station's lockers run to well over a hundred separate clusters spread across several concourse levels, and by mid-morning the large compartments — the only ones that actually take a suitcase — tend to be the first gone. One quieter cluster, reportedly, sits in the North Underground Passageway near the Kurobei Yokocho restaurant alley in GRANSTA Yaekita, priced at roughly ¥300-900 depending on size, though even that can fill on holidays. JR East also runs a newer Multi E-Cube system there, said to add advance reservation and same-day hotel delivery on top of the standard locker function. For longer stays, JR East Logistics operates a dedicated baggage service at four points inside the station that holds bags for up to 30 days — well past the usual three-day locker limit. A same-day cloak counter takes items up to 250cm total dimension and 30kg for roughly ¥500-2,000 each, closing at 9pm. According to one source, a Sagawa Express counter nearby charges a flat 800 yen a day and can arrange same-day hotel delivery if booked before 11am.
Shibuya's shifting layout
Shibuya is mid-redevelopment, and its exits and underground passages have changed noticeably from the layouts described in older guides — treat any specific locker location written before this year with some caution. The station holds more than ten separate locker clusters and close to 1,000 compartments across its JR, Tokyo Metro and Keio Inokashira sections, which sounds like plenty until reports suggest the banks nearest the Hachiko exit, right by the crossing and Shibuya 109, tend to fill early in the day. A staffed drop-off called Shibuya Chikamichi Information reportedly holds bags between 10am and 6pm for a flat 600 yen each — a narrower window than a coin locker, worth checking against your own schedule. Anyone heading up to Shibuya Sky should sort luggage first: according to one report, the observation deck doesn't allow large suitcases at all, and only small carry-on lockers exist at the 46th-floor entrance, for a 100-yen returnable deposit — so a suitcase reportedly needs storing elsewhere beforehand.
Ikebukuro and other hubs
Ikebukuro's own coin lockers are commonly described as busy and limited in the sizes they can take, particularly at peak times, which is why shop-based networks position themselves as a fallback there rather than a first choice. Competing services price close to what Radical Storage charges — Bounce lists Ikebukuro storage from about ¥275 a day, Stasher from roughly ¥550, Nannybag at a flat ¥750 — though one Bounce review flagged a partner point run out of a karaoke bar with signage poor enough to make it hard to find on arrival, a reminder that these are working shops, not dedicated counters. Tokyo Midtown in Roppongi has its own small-to-medium lockers on site but nothing built for an oversized suitcase, which is exactly where an off-site network fills the gap.
The app-based networks
Radical Storage advertises Tokyo-wide storage from roughly ¥490 a day across some 480 partner locations, charging one flat rate per bag regardless of size rather than the small/medium/large tiers a coin locker uses — though its own Hibiya-specific page quotes a different flat rate of ¥600, a reminder to check the exact listing rather than the headline figure. Its marketing also claims no size restrictions and acceptance of sports equipment, bicycles and strollers alongside ordinary luggage. ecbo cloak works similarly, listing more than 2,500 partner locations nationwide with per-item coverage up to ¥100,000, and recently added 7-Eleven as a partner — 378 stores and rising, many open 24 hours, a materially different option from a shop keeping daytime hours only. Reviews on Radical Storage's own listings repeatedly mention easy drop-off, friendly hosts, and staff photographing the bag at check-in as reassurance it will be identifiable later — though this praise comes from the operator's own site rather than an independent review platform, worth weighing accordingly. The catch with any shop-based network is that '24/7' branding on a category page doesn't always match a specific listing: one Shibuya Station partner point actually opened 10am-7pm and closed entirely one day a week, so the individual product page's stated hours matter more than the headline. Booking ahead is mainly worth doing around weekends and holidays, when walk-up availability at a given shop isn't guaranteed.
Choosing locker or app
As a rule of thumb: try the nearest coin locker first, provided it isn't already full and the bag isn't oversized. Move to a shop-based network when the local lockers are gone, when the luggage is an odd shape — a bike, a stroller, a case of instruments — or when a station's lockers have been taken out of service. Anything needing more than three days of storage belongs with JR East Logistics' long-stay service at Tokyo Station rather than a standard locker or a shop drop-off.
