Jobs Per Tech Per Day: The Service Tech Capacity Formula

A service tech's daily capacity is (paid hours × 60 − fixed minutes) ÷ (on-site + drive + wrap-up minutes), rounded down. With the inputs in the examples below that comes out to 5 calls for an HVAC diagnostic day and 3 for a service plumber. Your inputs will differ, which is the point: compute your number instead of copying one from a forum.

Why there is no single right number

Search the question and you get threads. One HVAC tech runs 4 to 6 calls in July, another swears by 8, a plumber says 3, and a commercial tech says 1. They're all right, because each is describing a different day: a different job mix, service area, and pile of paperwork. What the forums get right is that the number is real, and that owners who don't know theirs overbook the good techs and underfill the board. What they can't give you is your number, which comes from five inputs only you can measure.

The formula, term by term

• Paid hours: clock-in to clock-out, the hours you pay for.
• Fixed minutes: the parts of the day that belong to no job: huddle, truck stock, a paid lunch, the close-out. They happen whether the tech runs one call or six.
• On-site minutes: arrival to departure, averaged over the job mix the tech actually runs. A no-cool diagnostic and a four-unit duct cleaning don't belong in the same average.
• Drive minutes: leaving one job to arriving at the next, with supply-house runs spread across the day.
• Wrap-up minutes: the invoice, notes, photos, and the call to the office after each job. It's short, and it's per job, so it adds up faster than anything else here.

Worked example: HVAC service tech in peak season

Take Mike R., the first tech on the sample dispatch board, on a July day of no-cool calls. Every input is a stand-in for yours: replace it with what your last four weeks of tickets say.

Now look at the sample board. Today Mike R. has the AC tune-up at 8–10am and the rooftop unit at 10am–12pm, then nothing, while the Bell Tower "No cool, tenant call" card sits in New marked ASAP. At a capacity of 5 his afternoon has three open slots, so that card belongs in his column today. Dana K. has two jobs and the same three open slots. Two techs, ten slots, five cards: the board is underfilled, and the ASAP card was never a scheduling problem.

Worked example: residential service plumber

Same formula, different trade. A service plumber's calls run longer and carry more supply-house runs, so fold those into the drive average. Every input is yours to replace.

Electrical, installs, and why the mix matters more than the tech

Run the same 450 minutes through other job mixes and the number moves without the tech changing. HVAC peak season is short, scattered diagnostics; off-peak is longer tune-ups clustered by neighborhood, so drive shrinks and on-site grows. Every row is illustrative; the mechanism is the lesson.

The last row is the Reinhart farm mini-split on Mike R.'s board tomorrow, marked "All day." Jobs per day is the wrong measure for an install: one job, billable most of the day. That's why the next number matters more than the count.

Utilization: the 65% reality, and what 75% would take

For Mike R.'s July day that's 5 × 65 ÷ 510, or 64%, which is roughly what the trade measures. A Field Promax report, covered by ACHR News in 2026, examined more than 10,000 data points across 300 HVAC companies and found the average tech is paid for 8.8 hours a day and billable for 5.7 of them, about 65%. Around 1.13 hours a day went to driving that no trip charge or flat rate recovered; roughly two more went to off-ticket work, gaps, paperwork, training, and the truck. If your worksheet says a diagnostic tech is at 80%, an input is optimistic. Find it before you book to it.

Getting to 75% isn't a motivation problem. For Mike R., 75% of 510 minutes is 383 billable minutes, six calls at 65 each, and six only fit if the cycle drops from 85 minutes to 75. That's ten minutes a call: drive from 20 to 12 by zoning the day so calls sit near each other, and wrap-up from 10 to 8 by finishing the invoice in the driveway instead of at the shop. The other lever is the drive the report measured: a trip charge doesn't shorten it, but it moves part of it onto the ticket.

Signs a tech is overbooked, and signs the board is underfilled

Capacity is a forecast. The board tells you every afternoon whether it was right.

Overbooked

• Promised windows get missed more than once a week, and the office spends its morning pushing customers.
• Wrap-up gets skipped in the field, so invoices get written the next morning and the day starts late.
• Overtime every day, not just the day the compressor fought back.
• Callbacks are climbing. A tech who's rushed doesn't test the fix.

Underfilled

• Techs are back at the shop by 2pm with nothing in New.
• Utilization computes under your target two weeks running, and drive per call is climbing because the few calls are scattered across the map.
• The New column is empty by 10am. Capacity you didn't sell is the most expensive thing on the board.
• Maintenance agreements sit unbooked while the tech waits on the phone.

How to compute yours

1. 1Pull the last four weeks of completed jobs per tech. Note arrival to departure for on-site minutes and departure to the next arrival for drive, then average both by job mix. If all you have is the window, use its length as a placeholder and correct it as real times come in.
2. 2Write down the paid day in hours and the fixed minutes that belong to no job: the huddle, truck stock, a paid lunch, the close-out.
3. 3Time the wrap-up for one week, from the last screw to the truck pulling away: invoice, notes, photos, the call to the office.
4. 4Compute (paid hours × 60 − fixed) ÷ (on-site + drive + wrap-up) and round down. The remainder is the buffer for the callback or the ASAP card, not a booking.
5. 5Check utilization: jobs × (on-site + wrap-up) ÷ paid minutes. Well above 65% means an input is optimistic; find it before you book to that number.
6. 6Put every tech into the capacity worksheet below, one row per tech per job mix, or start in the dispatch board: add tomorrow's cards, assign each tech up to their computed number, and leave the rest in New, your overflow in plain sight.