Blog · Territory, capacity and quota planning
How a sales leader turns a headcount plan into a capacity plan from the team's own data: the ramp curve measured from past hires' attainment by month of tenure, the attrition rate by tenure band, the productive capacity each month that results, and the hiring dates that produce the number in the year, not the year after.
A capacity plan that says twelve reps at $1m each is $12m has assumed twelve fully productive reps for twelve months. The team will have new hires on a ramp and departures nobody planned. The team's own history says how much of each. This guide sets out the ramp curve, attrition by tenure, productive capacity per month, and the hiring dates that follow.
Per rep, per month:
Productive capacity = full quota per month × ramp fraction at this month of tenure
Per team, per month:
Expected capacity = Σ reps' productive capacity × (1 − attrition rate for the tenure band)
Per year:
Plan gap = target − Σ months' expected capacity
Rep identifiers only. Two to three years of history gives a usable ramp curve and attrition rates.
| Month of tenure | Mean attainment | Range |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | 5% | 0 to 15% |
| 3 to 4 | 30% | 15 to 45% |
| 5 to 6 | 60% | 40 to 80% |
| 7 to 9 | 85% | 65 to 100% |
| 10+ | 100% |
A hire in September has four months at an average of about 20 percent: under one month of full capacity this year.
| Tenure band | Annualised attrition |
|---|---|
| 0 to 6 months | 28% |
| 7 to 18 months | 14% |
| 19 to 48 months | 8% |
| 49+ months | 12% |
From the roster's end dates. A plan with four new hires loses, on the team's own history, more than one of them before they ramp.
Target $12m. Full quota $1m per rep per year. Ten tenured reps, two open roles.
| Hire date for the two roles | Their in-year capacity | Team expected capacity | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 February | $1.16m | $11.4m | $0.6m |
| 1 May | $0.62m | $10.9m | $1.1m |
| 1 September | $0.14m | $10.4m | $1.6m |
Even February hires do not close the gap, because ten tenured reps at 92 percent expected after attrition is $9.2m and two ramping hires cannot make up $2.8m. The plan says the target needs three hires by February or a lower target, and it says it in January.
Each month the February start slips costs about $0.15m of in-year capacity per hire. That figure, on the plan, is what moves a hiring manager.
Headcount used as capacity. Twelve reps, $12m, and a miss in December that was visible in January.
Ramp from a rule of thumb. "Six months" for a team whose data says nine.
Attrition ignored or annualised flat. The first-year losses are where the capacity goes.
Hiring dates not in the plan. Two open roles is not a plan; two roles starting on named dates is.
Mapped once, the roster and attainment history produce the ramp curve, the attrition rates, the expected capacity per month and the hiring-date scenarios. Covirage builds this from the exports as they are. The capacity planning solution describes the setup, and the capacity arithmetic guide covers the identity that ties the plan to the target.
From past hires: attainment against a full quota in each month of tenure, averaged across hires, with the range. A team whose hires reach 80 percent of quota in month seven has a seven-month ramp to 80 percent, and that curve is the input, not a rule of thumb.
Because reps leave at different rates at different tenures: many in the first six months, few in years two to four, more again later. A single annual rate spreads a first-year problem evenly across the plan and understates the capacity lost from hires that do not stay.
Productive capacity per month, the hiring dates needed to reach the target in-year, and the cost of hiring late: the capacity lost for each month a start date slips. It is the third figure that changes hiring behaviour.