Agency capacity planning for client requests
Agency capacity planning in AgencyPro starts from the work clients actually send. A capacity board compares each person's weekly hours with the work assigned to them, a suggested assignee and auto-assign route new requests, and per-client limits stop demand from outrunning your team.
Capacity management is included on Pro ($79/mo) and Plus ($149/mo).
Workload by person
Capacity, allocated hours, utilization
The capacity controls in AgencyPro
Three ways to see and route workload, and three ways to keep client demand in line with what you sold.
One row per team member: weekly capacity in hours, open requests, allocated hours on those requests, overdue count and utilization (allocated hours against capacity), sorted with the busiest people first.
AgencyPro suggests the team member with the most headroom: lowest utilization where capacities are set, otherwise the fewest open requests. The choice stops defaulting to whoever happens to be online.
New requests from a client are assigned automatically to that client organization's account managers, so nothing sits unassigned until someone triages the inbox.
Each service can cap how many requests a client has in progress at once. A client on a two-at-a-time plan cannot open a tenth request that lands on your team the same day.
Recurring services can cap requests per calendar month, so a retainer's scope is enforced by the product rather than by an awkward email.
With SLA tracking (also on Pro), each service can promise a turnaround in hours. Overdue requests show on the capacity board, an early sign that someone is over capacity.
Capacity math for a small agency
A hypothetical example. Four designers each have about 30 billable hours a week, so 120 hours in total. If an average request takes 5 hours, the team can finish about 24 requests a week.
Now the client side: 15 clients on a plan that allows two requests in progress at once could have up to 30 open requests. That is more than the team clears in a week, so either tighten the limit for some plans, raise prices, or hire. Run your own numbers in the client capacity calculator.
4 people x 30 hours / 5 hours
= about 24 requests per week
How to set it up
Four steps. The first one happens on paper. Our agency capacity planning guide goes deeper on the method.
On the Team capacity board, click Set capacity for each person and enter their weekly hours, for example 30 for each of four designers. Anyone left blank shows Not set. With requests averaging 5 hours, that is a budget of about 24 requests a week.
On each service, set Max concurrent requests (for example 2) and, for retainers, Max requests per month (for example 8), so 15 clients cannot open more work than the budget from step 1 can absorb.
Set account managers on each client organization and turn on auto-assign. When you place work by hand, the board shows "Suggested: Maya", the person with the lowest utilization. Add allocated hours to each request (say 6 for a landing page) so utilization reflects real load.
Every Monday, scan the board: a designer at 110% utilization with 2 overdue requests needs work moved; one at 40% can take it. If the same service keeps showing overdue requests, loosen its SLA or tighten its limits.
How agencies use it
The same controls, set differently for different kinds of client work.
Plans sold as "two requests at a time" are enforced by the concurrent request limit, and auto-assign spreads new requests across designers.
A monthly cap on requests keeps each retainer within scope, and the workload board shows when a month is front-loaded.
Tickets (Pro) can be auto-assigned round-robin, keeping quick fixes off the senior developer who is already carrying the big build.
When open requests per person keep rising and SLA misses increase, that is a pattern worth acting on before you hire or raise prices.
When AgencyPro is not the right capacity tool
- You book people by the hour, weeks ahead. Long projects staffed by role and skill on a calendar need a resource scheduling tool. See our resource management software roundup.
- Your work does not arrive as client requests. Capacity in AgencyPro is measured in requests. If most of your work is internal or planned top-down, the workload board will not reflect it.
- You are on Basic. The capacity board, suggestions and auto-assign are Pro features.
Frequently asked questions
What is included, what it costs and where it stops.
On Pro and Plus: a capacity board showing weekly capacity, open requests, allocated hours, overdue requests and utilization per person; a suggested assignee; auto-assignment of new client requests to account managers; and SLA tracking. Services can also limit how many requests a client has in progress at once and, for recurring services, how many they submit per calendar month.
Capacity management is on Pro at $79/mo with one seat, plus $20/mo per extra seat. An 8-person team pays $79 + 7 x $20 = $219/mo. Clients do not use seats.
No. It compares each person's weekly capacity with the hours allocated to their open requests. It does not book people into calendar slots weeks ahead or plan by skill across long projects; a dedicated resource scheduling tool fits that job better.
Set a concurrent request limit on the service, for example two requests in progress at a time. For retainers, also set a maximum number of requests per month. Extra demand waits its turn or becomes an upsell instead of overtime.
Multiply team members by weekly billable hours, divide by the average hours per request, and compare that with the requests your clients are allowed to open. Our client capacity calculator does the arithmetic for you.