Can your team take on another client?
Add your team and the hours each client needs. See how booked you are, how many more clients fit, and the point where you need to hire.
Updated November 9, 2026 · By Mo Arfaj, founder of Creepless
Agency capacity = people × hours per week × target utilization × 4.33 weeks a month. Hold back 10–15% for unplanned work, then compare what is left with the hours your clients need. Under 70% booked, you have room to sell; 70–90% is healthy; above 90%, start hiring or raise prices.
Agency Capacity Planner
Team capacity
667 h / monthClient demand per month
410 h bookedPipeline and buffer
The capacity planning formula
Capacity is what the team can bill. Demand is what clients and likely deals will use. The ratio is your load.
- Utilization
- The share of each person’s hours that is billable. Use your real target per role, not 100%.
- Buffer
- Hours held back for rush jobs, revisions and requests outside the plan. 10–15% is typical.
- Client hours
- What each client actually uses per month, from timesheets. Not what their retainer was priced at.
- Pipeline
- Deals likely to close this month, times the hours a typical new client needs.
A five-person studio with four retainers
Two designers at 75%, two developers at 80% and a writer at 75%, all on 40-hour weeks: 154 billable hours a week × 4.33 = 667 hours a month. Holding back 10% leaves 600 bookable hours.
The four clients use 120, 80, 60 and 150 hours = 410 hours. One deal is likely to close at about 40 hours a month, so 450 hours are committed.
75% booked: healthy, with room for three more 40-hour clients.
What your booked percentage means
Use these bands to decide whether this month is a selling month, a steady month or a hiring month.
| Booked | Status | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Under 70% | Room to sell | Push the pipeline and fill gaps with short projects. Avoid discounting to win work. |
| 70–90% | Healthy | Sell at a normal pace. Line up freelancers you can call on. |
| 90–100% | Nearly full | Start hiring, raise prices for new clients, and only take ideal-fit work. |
| Over 100% | Over capacity | Bring in freelancers, move start dates or hire. Overtime is not a plan. |
How to plan agency capacity
- 1
List your team by role
How many people in each role and the hours a week they work.
- 2
Set realistic utilization
The billable share you expect per role: 75–85% for delivery, lower for managers.
- 3
Add each client’s hours
Use the last three months of timesheets. If clients regularly ask for extras, the real number is higher than the priced one.
- 4
Add the pipeline
Deals likely to close this month, times the hours a typical new client needs.
- 5
Reserve a buffer
Hold back 10–15% for rush jobs, revisions and requests outside the plan.
- 6
Decide: sell, hold or hire
Read the percentage booked and the free hours or hires needed.
Keep the capacity plan honest
Use real hours, not sold hours
If clients get extras for free, they use more hours than their retainer paid for. Plan against actuals.
Plan by role
A team can be 70% booked overall while designers are at 110%. Check each role separately.
Update it weekly
Capacity changes with every new request, holiday and lost client. A monthly check is too late.
Hire at 85%, not 100%
Recruiting and onboarding take months. Start before the team is full.
Keep a freelancer bench
Two or three trusted freelancers turn a capacity crunch into a short-term cost instead of a missed deadline.
Count holidays
In holiday months, reduce hours per week for the people who are away.
What is capacity planning for an agency?
Comparing the billable hours your team can deliver with the hours clients and new deals will need, month by month. It tells you when to sell harder, when to stop taking work, and when to hire.
How do you calculate team capacity?
For each role: people × hours a week × target utilization × 4.33 weeks a month. Two designers working 40 hours at 75% utilization give 2 × 40 × 0.75 × 4.33 = 260 billable hours a month. Subtract a buffer for unplanned work to get the hours you can actually book.
What is a good capacity level for an agency?
70–90% booked is the comfortable range. Below 70%, people are idle and margins suffer. Above 90%, any rush job or sick day causes delays, and there is no time left for sales or improvement.
When should an agency hire?
When you are consistently above 85–90% booked and the pipeline is solid. A new hire typically takes 6–10 weeks to recruit and several more to be fully productive, so waiting until you hit 100% means months of overtime.
How many clients can one person handle?
Divide one person’s monthly billable capacity by the average hours a client needs. At 40 hours a week and 75% utilization, someone delivers about 130 billable hours a month: three clients at 40 hours each, or six at 20.
Why 4.33 weeks per month?
There are 52 weeks in 12 months, so an average month has 52 ÷ 12 = 4.33 weeks. Using 4 underestimates capacity by about 8%.
Can I plan capacity by role?
Yes. Totals can hide a bottleneck: designers can be full while developers are idle. Run the planner once per role, entering only that role’s people and the hours each client needs from it.
Keep running the numbers
Know what each client really uses
Creepless logs every client request against the plan, including the hours and revisions it uses, so your capacity plan matches the work that actually comes in. Free for two clients.
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