Time & capacity
Bench time cost calculator
The bench is salary without revenue. Put a monthly number on it, and on what one month of faster staffing would save.
- Bench cost per month
- ₹2,50,000
- Cost per bench stint
- ₹5,00,000
- Annualised bench cost
- ₹30,00,000
Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent or stored. Indicative arithmetic, not legal, payroll or tax advice.
The formula
- Monthly bench cost = benched headcount × (average CTC ÷ 12)
- Cost per stint = monthly bench cost × average bench months
Some bench is deliberate; unmeasured bench is not
A services firm with zero bench cannot start new work — a small buffer is the price of responsiveness, and staffing gaps between projects are inevitable. The problem is bench that nobody sees: people between allocations for weeks because staffing decisions run on stale spreadsheets. Three people at ₹10 lakh CTC idling for two months is ₹5 lakh of salary with no revenue against it.
The cost is also an understatement: benched capacity that could have been billed at market rates represents forgone revenue typically 2–3× the salary cost. This calculator prices the certain loss; the opportunity cost is larger.
Shrinking the bench without layoffs
Bench time shrinks when allocation decisions get faster, and allocation decisions get faster when utilisation data is current. Knowing today — not at month-end — who is rolling off which project next week turns bench from a discovery into a plan: pre-sold work, internal product time, or training with an end date.
Stop calculating this by hand
Workclave shows allocation as it happens — whose sessions are landing on billable projects and whose are not — so the bench is visible in days, not discovered at month-end.
Bench time cost calculator — common questions
Who counts as benched?
Anyone employed in a delivery role with no billable allocation — between projects, awaiting a start date, or unallocated after a ramp-down. People in training or on internal products are a policy choice: cost them separately if you want the pure between-projects number.
Is a bench percentage target meaningful?
Roughly, bench % is 100 minus delivery utilisation. Firms often tolerate 10–20% for staffing flexibility. What matters more than the level is the duration per person — a wide shallow bench of days is healthy rotation; a narrow deep bench of months is a sales or skills problem.
How do I see the bench earlier?
Project-linked time records show allocation in real time: when someone's sessions stop landing on billable projects, they are on the bench whether or not a spreadsheet says so. That signal, live, is what makes faster staffing possible.
Il tuo team sta lavorando. Inizia a capire come.
Unisciti ai team che registrano sessioni, non solo tempo. Gratis fino a 3 utenti: nessuna carta, nessun minimo, nessun vincolo.