Customer Support SLA Calculator

How this calculator works

The math is intentionally simple. Each agent has a certain number of minutes per day available for ticket work — coverage hours times utilization (the share of the shift that is actually on tickets, not breaks or admin). Divide total ticket-minutes needed by per-agent capacity, round up, and add a small buffer if the target SLA is tight relative to your average handle time.

This is a back-of-envelope tool. It will tell you whether you need 2 agents or 5. It will not tell you the difference between 3.2 and 3.4. For that, a proper queueing model (Erlang C) or historical data is more useful.

What is an SLA for customer support?

A service-level agreement (SLA) in support is a commitment to how fast you will respond (response SLA) or resolve (resolution SLA) a ticket. It can be internal — a target the team is trying to hit — or external, published to customers. Either way, the math is the same: you need enough capacity during enough hours to reply before the clock runs out.

Common support SLA targets by channel

• Email: 4–24 hr response, 24–48 hr resolution
• Live chat: 30 sec–2 min response, same-session resolution
• Phone: 30 sec pickup, same-call resolution
• Social: 30 min–4 hr response

Setting realistic SLAs

• Start with what you already do on a good day, not what you wish you did
• Tier by priority — urgent tickets get tighter SLAs than feature requests
• Tier by customer type — enterprise or paid tiers can get faster response
• Measure for at least 30 days before you publish the number externally
• Publish the SLA internally before tying it to agent performance

From calculator to dashboard

The calculator runs once. A help desk with real-time SLA tracking tells you whether you are hitting the target ticket-by-ticket. Auxx.ai gives every small team a live view of FRT, SLA compliance, and resolution time — so you can see the gap between what the calculator says and what is actually happening.