Can you service the work you are buying?
Advertising is the easy part of scaling. Attending the work is not. This compares the jobs your crew can physically complete in a month against the jobs your enquiries produce, and tells you which side of the line you are on.
Your numbers
The answer
Spare capacity a month
154.6
42 jobs from enquiries against 196.6 of capacity
Monthly capacity
196.6
252 jobs at 78% utilisation
Capacity used
21.4%
42 jobs from 140 enquiries
Enquiries needed to fill
516
About $46,368 of advertising
Revenue available from filling
$185,472
154.6 jobs at $1,200.00
Jobs per person a month
65.5
After utilisation
How this was worked out
- Raw capacity
- 3 × 4 jobs/day × 21 days = 252
- Real capacity
- 252 × 78% = 196.6
- Jobs from enquiries
- 140 × 30% = 42
- Spare capacity
- 196.6 − 42 = 154.6
- Capacity used
- 42 ÷ 196.6 = 21.4%
Capacity and demand as the crew changes size
| People on the tools | Capacity a month | Enquiries it can absorb | Revenue at full |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 131 | 437 | $157,248 |
| 3 — you are here | 196.6 | 655 | $235,872 |
| 4 | 262.1 | 874 | $314,496 |
| 5 | 327.6 | 1,092 | $393,120 |
Full is a theoretical ceiling, not a roster. Work does not arrive evenly, so a business averaging 80% of this will still turn jobs away in a busy week and sit idle in a quiet one.
What to do with this
- You can complete 196.6 jobs a month and your enquiries produce 42. That leaves 154.6 jobs of spare capacity — 78.6% of the crew's month.
- Filling it needs about 516 more enquiries, which would cost roughly $46,368 at $90.00 each and bring in $185,472 of work. That is the cheapest growth available to you, because the crew is paid either way.
- Redo this whenever the crew changes size. Capacity is the constraint every marketing plan assumes away, and it is the one that produces the bad reviews.
Change anything above and the link in your address bar changes with it, so you can send the exact result to whoever needs to see it. Nothing you type is sent anywhere — the whole calculation happens in your browser.
What this does, and how the maths works
What it does
- Works out how many jobs your team can complete in a month, after utilisation.
- Compares that against the jobs your current enquiry flow produces, and reports the gap either way.
- Prices the gap: what it would cost in advertising to fill spare capacity, or what the overflow is worth if you added someone.
How to use it
- Enter how many people attend jobs, how many jobs each does on a normal day, and how many working days you count in a month.
- Set utilisation honestly. Travel, quoting, warranty callbacks and paperwork all come out of the day, and almost nobody runs at 100%.
- Enter the enquiries you get and the share that become work.
- Read the verdict, then the cost of filling or the value of the overflow.
The formula
- Capacity = people × jobs per day × working days × utilisation
- Jobs from enquiries = enquiries × lead-to-job rate
- Spare capacity = capacity − jobs from enquiries
- Extra enquiries to fill = spare capacity ÷ lead-to-job rate
Reading the answer
- Spare capacity is the cheapest growth available. The crew is paid either way, so the only new cost is the advertising that fills the day.
- Overflow is expensive in a way that does not appear in any report. It shows up later as slow callbacks, cancelled bookings and reviews about not turning up.
- Once you are at capacity, the next lever is price, not budget. Raising rates on a full book loses the worst work and keeps the margin.
What it cannot tell you
A month of capacity is not evenly available. Emergency trades get a fortnight of storms and then nothing, and a business at 80% average utilisation can still turn work away every Monday. Use this for the annual shape, not for next week's roster.
Where every figure on this page came from
Every default in the calculator above is either your own number or a figure from one of the studies below, with the market and the sample stated. Nothing here is an estimate somebody felt was about right, and no United States figure is wearing an Australian label.
This tool cites no third-party figures. Every input is your own, which means the answer is only as good as the numbers you put in — and that nothing here is a benchmark dressed up as a default.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about working with SoudCoh
Have more questions? Let's chat!
Book a Free Strategy CallAs many as your crew can attend, divided by the share of enquiries that become work. Three people doing four jobs a day across twenty-one days at 78% utilisation is about 196 jobs a month, and at a 30% close rate that needs roughly 650 enquiries to fill. Most trade businesses are nowhere near their capacity ceiling, which is why spare capacity is usually the cheapest growth on the table — and why the ones that are at the ceiling should be raising prices rather than budgets.
We have no published figure to give you and will not invent one. What we can say is that 100% is arithmetic rather than reality: travel between jobs, quoting, warranty callbacks, materials runs and paperwork all come out of the same day. Work out your own by taking billable hours over total paid hours for a month. Whatever it is, use that number here rather than the one you would like it to be.
When this tool shows overflow rather than spare capacity. If your enquiries already produce more jobs than the crew can attend, another dollar of advertising buys a job you will disappoint someone by not attending. The overflow line prices what a hire would be worth in monthly revenue, which is the comparison to make against the cost of employing them.
The damage lands outside the ad account, which is why it goes unnoticed. Calls get returned slowly, jobs get rescheduled, and the reviews start mentioning it. That last one is the expensive part: reviews affect how the business is chosen for years, and repairing them costs far more than the extra jobs were worth.
On a full book, yes, and it is the only growth lever left once capacity is reached. A price rise on a business that is already turning work away loses the least profitable jobs first and keeps the rest at a better margin. The quote win rate calculator shows what that trade looks like in numbers.
Run these next
One number rarely settles anything on its own. These three answer the questions this one raises.
Cost of missed calls
Put an annual figure on unanswered calls: how many are gone for good, the jobs behind them, and the gross profit that leaves with them.
ServiceTitan 2022
Charge-out rate
Set an hourly rate from what you need to earn, the overheads you carry and the hours you can genuinely bill, rather than from what the competition charges.
ATO
Leads to booked jobs
Walk a month of enquiries through answering, booking and completion to see the real lead-to-job rate and which stage is costing you the most work.
ServiceTitan 2022
We will read
your real ones.
Send us the account rather than the estimate. We will tell you what it is actually costing to win a job, which part of the chain is leaking, and whether it is worth fixing — before anyone asks you to sign anything.