The Support Capacity Formula That Tells Me When to Hire or When to Fix the Product

Editor’s Note: This article was first published on my site in an earlier form. It has been fully updated with new insights, examples, and resources to reflect how we use this formula today.

If you’ve ever felt the pressure of an overflowing support inbox, you know the frustration: late replies, stressed teammates, and customers slipping away. The question nags at every product leader: should you hire more people or fix the product that’s driving the volume? This article gives you a proven formula to answer that question with confidence.

Support teams often decide to hire based on feelings. They wait until the inbox is overflowing and then rush to bring someone on board. I’ve done it too. The result is clear: the team can burn out from too many tickets, or payroll can swell with unnecessary staff.

I first created this formula when we were scaling the GiveWP support team. Later, once GiveWP joined StellarWP, I was able to apply the same framework across all StellarWP brands. That experience proved that this approach works for any WordPress product support team, not just one company.

For fast-growing product companies, this guesswork is riskier. Growth brings many new users and questions. Without a clear system, support costs can increase sharply. We found that the issue wasn’t the budget. We lacked a reliable way to measure capacity. Once we began tracking it, hiring shifted from guessing to smart scaling.

How to Measure Support Capacity

We created a simple formula with two factors: the minutes our tickets need and the minutes our agents have.

• Minutes Needed = ticket load × average handle time.
• Minutes Available = team size (FTEs) × working minutes per week.
• Capacity Ratio = minutes needed ÷ minutes available.
• Compound Capacity = a view that combines current demand with backlog over time.

The ratio tells us what’s happening. A score above 1 means we’re overwhelmed. Customers wait longer, quality drops, and the backlog grows. A score of 0.5–0.7 indicates that the team maintains a healthy balance by being engaged but not strained. By tracking compound capacity, we can spot long-term strain before it becomes a crisis. For a fast-growing product business, this early warning is crucial. It shows if growth is sustainable with the current team or if adjustments are needed.

Download the Capacity Sheet

I’m not the only one who finds this framework useful. I teamed up with the BlinkMetrics crew. They added a “Capacity Data” tab to their analytics platform using my spreadsheet. This showed me that our formula is practical enough for enterprise reporting.

Want to see how these numbers work in real life? I created a sample capacity sheet based on the formula. You can download it for free by joining my email list.

Plug in your own ticket load, handle time, and staffing levels to see your team’s real capacity week by week. This tool is especially helpful for product shops in high-growth phases. It helps prevent small support issues from becoming large ones.

What capacity numbers reveal about your next move

Capacity isn’t for deciding when to hire. It helps you find the real problem.

If your capacity is over 90% on a regular basis, you need more staff. But if your ratio is healthy and your support costs are still high, the issue isn’t headcount; it’s volume. Too many tickets may come from the product itself.

This shifts the conversation. Instead of asking, “Who should we hire?” you ask, “Why are customers contacting us so much?” For businesses that are scaling quickly, this question is vital. It can mean the difference between compounding growth and costs.

Using capacity to guide decisions

When numbers show you’re staffed well but costs are high, the focus shifts to ticket prevention. Look upstream:

1. Onboarding: Does your initial experience clear up confusion or create it?
2. Documentation: Are common questions answered clearly, or do they lead customers to support?
3. Product fixes: Which repeated issues could be solved with product changes?

Capacity metrics force these questions. They show when the bottleneck is the product, not the people. For fast-growing product shops, this distinction protects margins and helps new users succeed.

Turning Capacity into a Growth Lever

Capacity turns support from a vague department into a measurable system. Once you know your ratio, you won’t wonder if you need to hire, freeze, or invest in product. The numbers will guide you.

Here’s how to apply it:

1. Track closed tickets, handle time, and team minutes weekly.
2. Calculate your capacity ratio: minutes needed ÷ minutes available.
3. What I call “Compound Capacity” takes into account tickets that weren’t resolved in previous weeks. Monitor this for long-term trends.
4. Act on the numbers: hire if you’re overloaded. Hold steady if you’re balanced. Fix the product if costs are high but without adding more work.

For growing product companies, this process is a safeguard. It helps you grow support as your customer base grows. This way, you can add revenue without stressing your team.

The Real Value of Knowing Capacity

Support capacity is more than a budgeting trick. It’s a decision-making tool. Understanding capacity shows you where to focus. Sometimes, that means hiring. Other times, it means fixing the product to lower incoming tickets.

The real win is clarity: support grows alongside revenue, never against it. For product shops in high-growth phases, that clarity is key to smooth scaling.

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