Shrinkage Calculator for Contact Center
If you need 50 agents online, how many should you actually hire?
Shrinkage
31.0%
Net Capacity
69.0%
Headcount
73
You need 73 agents to keep 50 available, with 23 extra to cover shrinkage.
Your shrinkage is within the typical industry range of 25โ35%.
Shrinkage categories
Adjust each category as a percentage of total paid time
Add custom category
Shrinkage breakdown
Live view of which categories contribute most to total shrinkage
Set a category above 0% to view the breakdown chart.
Capacity split
Available time vs shrinkage
Headcount mix
Coverage target vs added agents for shrinkage
Headcount chart is unavailable when shrinkage is 100% or higher.
Frequently asked questions
What is shrinkage in a contact center?
Shrinkage is the percentage of paid time when agents are unavailable to handle contacts, due to PTO, breaks, training, meetings, or admin tasks.
What's a typical shrinkage rate?
Most contact centers see 25โ35% shrinkage. Anything below 20% likely underestimates, and above 40% signals a problem.
How does shrinkage affect service levels?
If you staff to net coverage without accounting for shrinkage, you'll consistently miss SLA targets because fewer agents are actually available.
Should I include breaks in shrinkage?
Yes. Any time an agent is paid but not available to handle work counts as shrinkage, including paid breaks.
Turn this into a real schedule
Use Soon to build optimized schedules that account for shrinkage automatically.
Try Soon for free โBuilt by Soon ยท Free, no signup required
Contact Center Shrinkage Report
Staffing Shrinkage Calculator
Soon
Required Coverage
50
Total Shrinkage
31.0%
Net Capacity
69.0%
Required Headcount
73
Extra Needed
23
Capacity & Headcount Overview
Visual split of availability vs overhead
Capacity Split
ยท
Headcount Mix
ยท
Category Breakdown
Relative contribution of each shrinkage category
No active categories. Set a category above 0% to populate chart data.