Common questions
When we work with professional services leaders, these are the questions that come up most
Not every open seat would have been billable. Some capacity sits on the bench.
Correct, and that is exactly what the billable-utilization control is for (default 70%, near the 2024 industry average and below the 75% profitability target). Open Show the math and you will see it applied at every step. Only demand-backed capacity counts toward fees at risk; if your pipeline is thin, dial utilization down, and if your firm runs hot, raise it. The model never assumes a seat bills 100% of its hours.
Forgone billings aren't forgone profit. We don't pay the salary while the seat is empty.
Right, and the model nets it out. It shows gross fees at risk and, below that, a net figure after the comp you do not pay during the vacancy. Because firm bill rates run well above hourly cost (healthy firms hold project margins above 35%), the majority of even the net figure is contribution margin. The point of the gross number is that it is the fee revenue your firm never gets to recognize.
Where do the bill rate and revenue-per-consultant figures come from?
Firm bill rates run roughly $250 to $1,000+ per hour by level (about $150-300 for IT and functional work, $400-$1,000+ for strategy and partners),1 and firms generate roughly $200K in fees per consultant at the broad industry average, rising to $300-400K at mid-market functional firms and the Big Four.2 The defaults sit at the conservative end. Replace them with your own rates for an exact figure.
Couldn't we just cover the gap with subcontractors or staff augmentation?
Often you can, and that is precisely the hard-dollar floor the calculator shows as Method C. It is not free: independents and staff-augmentation contractors cost more per hour and capture less margin than an employee in the seat, so bridging the gap is real money even when the client work gets delivered. Filling the role permanently and faster removes both the fee risk and the premium cost.
A new consultant isn't billable on day one. Doesn't ramp time change this?
It strengthens the case rather than weakening it. New hires ramp to full utilization over weeks, so the true revenue gap runs past the start date. This calculator counts only days-to-fill and ignores ramp entirely, which keeps the estimate conservative. Filling sooner shortens both the empty-seat period and the climb to full billing.
How reliable is the 30 to 50% time-to-fill improvement?
The conservative default of 30% sits below hireEZ's measured benchmark of about 50% across customers, and you can set it to whatever you believe is real for your roles and markets. You also do not have to take it on faith: the analytics layer measures the actual reduction in time-to-fill from your own hiring data, so the assumption here can be replaced with your number.
We bill fixed-fee or value-based, not hourly.
The bill rate is only the unit of measure. For fixed-fee work, use your effective rate (engagement fee divided by delivery hours) against booked engagements; the perishable-capacity logic is identical. At fixed fee, an unstaffed seat means the engagement slips or a more senior, more expensive person absorbs the work, both of which erode margin. Enter your effective rate and the model holds.
