Find the share of your team's available hours that are actually billable.
Utilisation rate calculator
Plug in your numbers - it updates as you type.
The share of a team member's available hours spent on billable client work. A core lever for agency profitability and capacity planning.
For example, if a designer has 40 available hours in a week and logs 30 on billable client work, their utilisation rate is 75%. The other 25% goes to internal meetings, admin and pitching - useful, but not directly paid for by a client.
Why it matters to agencies: utilisation is one of the biggest levers on profit. Too low and you are paying for idle time; too high and your team burns out and quality slips. Tracking it tells you when to hire, when to push for more work, and how to price.
Utilisation rate = billable hours ÷ available hours × 100
Most agencies target roughly 70-85% for delivery roles.
Most agencies target 70-85% utilisation for delivery roles - high enough to be profitable, with room left for admin, learning and pitching.
The share of a team member's available hours spent on billable client work. A core lever for agency profitability and capacity planning.
Divide billable hours by available hours and multiply by 100.
Most agencies target roughly 70-85% for delivery roles - high enough to be profitable, with room left for admin, learning and pitching.
Utilisation is the percentage of available time that is billable; billable hours are the raw count. One is the ratio, the other the input.
Forge builds your utilisation tracker and looks after it - tracking utilisation rate live for your whole agency, built around the tools you already use. No spreadsheets, no code on your side.