Planning calculator

Call Center Staffing Calculator

Estimate call center staffing from call volume, average handle time, occupancy, shrinkage and working hours.

Editorial review: 2026-09-10Method: evidence firstCommercial influence: none

This calculator produces a planning estimate for workload capacity. It is not a replacement for interval-level Erlang/service-level workforce modeling.

Inputs

Contacts per day, average handle time in seconds, paid hours per agent/day, target occupancy and shrinkage.

Workload

Workload Hours = Contacts x AHT Seconds / 3600

Productive hours per paid agent

Productive Hours = Paid Hours x Occupancy x (1 - Shrinkage)

Planning FTE

Planning FTE = Workload Hours / Productive Hours

Example: 1,000 calls, 300-second AHT, 8 paid hours, 85% occupancy and 30% shrinkage produces about 83.33 workload hours, 4.76 productive hours per paid FTE and 17.5 planning FTE, rounded up to 18.

For production inbound staffing, model interval arrival patterns, service level, patience, occupancy and schedule constraints.

Compare the cost of staffing this team.

INTERACTIVE PLANNING MODEL

Run your scenario

Change the assumptions to see the result. Decimal rates use 0.80 for 80%.

PLANNING OUTPUT

83.33Workload hours
Productive hours per agent
4.48
Planning FTE
18.6
Rounded planning headcount
19
Assumptions and limits

Planning estimate only; not interval-level Erlang/service-level queue modeling.