Sprint Capacity Calculator
Calculate effective sprint capacity and recommended story points from sprint duration, business days, team size, and time-off. Improve estimation accuracy in sprint planning by accounting for meetings, holidays, and individual availability.
Last updated:
How to Use
Expand how to useCollapse how to use
- 1
Enter sprint conditions
Input sprint length, business days, team size, and daily working hours per member.
- 2
Set adjustment factors
Set holiday/vacation person-days, meeting hours, and buffer rate to adjust effective capacity.
- 3
Review plan gap
Check recommended story points, utilization rate, and over/under planning gap to tune your sprint plan.
Effective capacity is 219.3 h, recommended story points are 54.8 SP, and utilization is 54.7%.
Inputs
Example: If 2 members take 1 day off each, enter 2
Total meeting and ceremony hours per person in this sprint
Reserved margin for unplanned work (recommended 10-20%)
Use 4 hours/SP if you do not have historical data
Total SP your team plans to complete in this sprint
Results
- Total Capacity
- 300 h
- Adjusted Capacity (before buffer)
- 258 h
- Effective Capacity
- 219.3 h
- Capacity per Person
- 43.86 h/person
Recommended Story Points
- Recommended Story Points
- 54.8 SP
- Planned Workload (hours)
- 120 h
- Utilization Rate
- 54.7%
- Plan Delta (hours)
- +99.3 h
- Plan Delta (SP)
- +24.8 SP
Planned within 100% utilization.
Plan Status
Under Capacity
You still have 99.3 h (24.8 SP) available.
About Sprint Capacity Calculator
Sprint Capacity Calculator helps Agile teams create realistic sprint plans by converting real-world availability constraints into concrete capacity numbers. Input your sprint duration, number of business days, team size, and daily working hours per member, then adjust for holidays, vacation days (person-days off), recurring meeting hours, and a buffer percentage for unplanned work. The tool calculates gross capacity, net available hours after all deductions, utilization rate, and a recommended story point range based on your team's historical velocity. It also highlights over-planning or under-planning gaps so you can adjust before committing to the sprint backlog. All calculations run instantly in your browser.
Key Features
- Real-time calculation of total and effective capacity
- Availability adjustment with holiday/vacation person-days and meeting hours
- Safety margin support through configurable buffer rate
- Per-person capacity visibility for team alignment
- Immediate over/under planning gap in both hours and story points
Use Cases
- Setting a realistic story point commitment at the start of sprint planning
- Adjusting sprint targets during holiday weeks (Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.)
- Accounting for recurring ceremonies — sprint planning, review, retro, and weekly syncs
- Communicating capacity constraints to the Product Owner when the team is understaffed
- Re-calibrating capacity after adding or losing a team member mid-project
- Planning a reduced-capacity sprint when several engineers have scheduled PTO
FAQ
What are holiday/vacation person-days?
It is the total unavailable days across the team. For example, if two members take one day off each, enter 2 person-days.
How much buffer rate should I use?
10-20% is a common baseline. Teams with frequent incidents or interruptions should use a higher buffer.
How are recommended story points calculated?
Recommended story points are calculated as effective capacity in hours divided by your hours-per-story-point assumption.
How do I determine hours per story point?
Divide total effective hours by completed story points from recent sprints. A common baseline is 4-8 hours per SP, but it varies by team.
What should I do when team size changes?
Update the team size and hours-per-SP inputs. For new team members, consider raising the buffer rate during their onboarding period.