Everhour Resource Planning connects capacity, time off, and tracked work so utilization stays tied to real schedules.
Measure billable utilization against total capacity and see exactly how many hours you're leaving on the table each period.
Working hours this period
Industry average for agencies: 75–85%
The calculator gives you the number — Everhour takes it from there.
One click and you're timing. Start a timer, add an entry, edit the details. This is exactly how it feels in Everhour.
Set a budget, assign rates, and get alerted before you're over.
Measurement
Track your budget through time or costs
Every report you need — configured your way, always up to date.
Tracked hours flow straight into a polished invoice — no copy-paste, no manual math.
Utilization rate answers how much of a person's or team's available work time became billable work. The basic formula is billable hours divided by available hours, then multiplied by 100. A consultant with 128 billable hours in a month and 160 available hours has 80% utilization. That figure only means something when the denominator is named clearly.
The calculation matters for staffing, pricing, project mix, and workload planning. A U.S. firm may start from a 40-hour week because federal overtime rules require covered nonexempt employees to receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a fixed 168-hour workweek. That does not create a federal utilization target or a legal full-time definition.
Available hours can mean gross capacity, net working hours, or total logged hours. Gross capacity uses the full scheduled baseline, such as 40 hours per week. Net working hours subtract company PTO, holidays, unpaid leave, and other absences. Total logged hours uses only time entries and measures billable share of recorded work, which is useful for time hygiene but weak for capacity planning.
The denominator changes the result. A person with 136 billable hours in a 160-hour month has 85% utilization on gross capacity. If that month includes 16 hours of company PTO and the firm uses a net-working-hours denominator, available hours become 144, and the same 136 billable hours produce 94.44% utilization. The work did not change. The policy did.
Use this formula: utilization rate = billable hours / available hours * 100. Billable hours are hours attached to client work that the firm treats as billable. Available hours are the capacity base chosen for the report. Keep internal meetings, training, sales work, administration, and paid leave outside billable hours unless your firm's policy explicitly classifies them differently.
Example: a designer has 112 billable hours in June. The firm starts from 160 scheduled hours, subtracts 8 hours of paid holiday time and 8 hours of PTO, and uses 144 available hours as the denominator. The utilization rate is 112 / 144 * 100 = 77.78%. Label the result as utilization on net available hours, not utilization on gross capacity.
A one-off calculation is enough when you need a quick check for one person, one period, and one clear denominator. It is also enough for a proposal estimate or a monthly review where billable hours and capacity are already clean. The result becomes fragile when people use different definitions of PTO, holidays, internal work, or billable time.
A managed workflow is better when utilization feeds staffing decisions, capacity planning, or target comparisons. Everhour Resource Planning shows member and project timelines, weekly capacity, availability gaps, scheduled time off, and planned-vs-actual time. That gives managers a durable way to compare utilization against real assignments instead of rebuilding the denominator by hand every reporting cycle.
This content is for general information only, may not be fully up to date, and is provided without any warranty or liability.
High Performer
G2
Summer 2026
Best Ease Of Use
Capterra
Summer 2026
Rated in the top time trackers across G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius — with consistent praise for ease of use, integrations, and support.
Utilization rate = billable hours / available hours * 100. Use billable hours as the numerator and your chosen capacity base as the denominator. The result must name the denominator, such as gross capacity, net working hours, or total logged hours, because each version answers a different management question.
Scheduled capacity works for a rough capacity baseline. Net working hours work better when PTO, holidays, unpaid leave, or other absences should reduce the denominator. U.S. federal law does not define full-time employment, and the FLSA does not require paid vacation or holiday time for private employers, so the firm must set the policy.
The denominator changes the percentage. A person with 136 billable hours reaches 85% utilization on 160 gross hours and 94.44% on 144 net available hours. Neither answer is wrong when the label is clear. The mistake is mixing denominator definitions across people, teams, or reporting periods.
There is no statutory U.S. utilization target. Federal sources define work-hour and leave rules, but professional-services utilization targets come from firm policy, role expectations, service line economics, or industry benchmarks. Delivery roles usually need a different target than managers, sales contributors, or internal operations roles.
Company PTO, holidays, unpaid leave, and similar absences should reduce available hours when the firm uses a net-working-hours denominator. OECD annual-hours guidance excludes public holidays, annual paid leave, illness, maternity or parental leave, and similar absences from hours actually worked, so actual-hours data is different from gross capacity.
Everhour Resource Planning shows weekly capacity, scheduled time off, availability gaps, and planned-vs-actual time on visual timelines. Managers can view schedules by member or project, then compare utilization against real assignments instead of calculating every person's denominator from a separate spreadsheet.
Everhour Reporting turns logged time, billable time, costs, budgets, and project data into customizable reports. Teams can group and filter reports by member, project, client, or date range, then export utilization-supporting data to CSV, Excel/XLSX, or PDF for review.
Track capacity, time off, planned work, and actual hours in Everhour Resource Planning so utilization reviews reflect real schedules, not spreadsheet guesses.
14-day free trial · No credit card · Cancel anytime
