Sales Per Labor Hour (SPLH): Formula, Worked Example and How to Use It
30 October 2026 · The Rosterly team · 4 min read
Sales per labor hour (SPLH) is your sales for a period divided by the total hours your team worked in it. If a café takes $4,200 on Saturday across 60 staff hours, its SPLH is $70. Unlike labor cost percentage, it ignores pay rates, so it shows whether you had the right number of people on, hour by hour, and it's easy to compare across days.
SPLH is one of the most useful numbers for building a roster, because it ties staff hours directly to demand. Here's how to calculate it, how to read it and how to turn it into next week's roster.
The formula
Sales per labor hour = Sales for the period ÷ Total labor hours worked in the period
Use hours worked, not hours rostered, and the same period for both.
Include everyone whose hours you'd count in labor cost: front and back of house, shift leaders and paid trainees. Most operators leave out salaried managers' hours, or track them separately. Whatever you choose, do it the same way every time.
A worked example
A café tracks three days:
Day
Sales
Labor hours
SPLH
Tuesday
Sales: $2,100
Labor hours: 42
SPLH: $50
Friday
Sales: $3,300
Labor hours: 48
SPLH: $69
Saturday
Sales: $4,200
Labor hours: 60
SPLH: $70
Friday and Saturday are running at about the same productivity. Tuesday is the outlier: it's staffed for more sales than it gets. Cutting one six-hour shift on Tuesday would lift SPLH to $58 without touching the busy days.
SPLH vs labor cost percentage
The two metrics answer different questions:
Sales per labor hour
Labor cost percentage
Formula
Sales per labor hour: Sales ÷ hours worked
Labor cost percentage: Labor cost ÷ sales × 100
Includes pay rates
Sales per labor hour: No
Labor cost percentage: Yes, plus on-costs
Best for
Sales per labor hour: Staffing levels by hour or day
Labor cost percentage: Overall cost control and budgets
Affected by a pay rise
Sales per labor hour: No
Labor cost percentage: Yes
Labor cost percentage is the number your accountant cares about. For restaurants, industry guides such as Toast commonly cite 25–35% of sales. SPLH is the number that helps you decide how many people to put on at 2pm on a Tuesday. Use both: our labor cost percentage formula and calculator covers the other half, and how to calculate true labor cost explains the on-costs.
How to find your own target
There's no universal "good" SPLH. It depends on your prices, service style and how much prep work happens off the floor. Set your own:
1.
Pull four weeks of sales and worked hours by day, or by hour if your till can export it.
2.
Calculate SPLH for each block.
3.
Find the busy blocks where service still felt good. Their SPLH is a realistic target.
4.
Look for blocks well below it. Those are where you're overstaffed.
5.
Look for blocks well above it, where staff were stretched. Those may need another person.
Turning SPLH into a roster
Once you have a target, staffing becomes arithmetic:
Hours needed = Forecast sales for the block ÷ Target SPLH
Round to whole shifts, and never below your minimum crew for safety and service.
If you expect $1,800 between 11am and 2pm and your target is $60, you need 30 labor hours across that block: roughly ten people for three hours, or a mix of longer and shorter shifts. Set a minimum crew too: even at quiet times you need someone to open, someone on the register and anyone required for safety.
Build next week to your numbers
Rebuild your busiest and quietest days in Rosterly and see the hours side by side. 14-day free trial, no card needed.
Daily SPLH hides the real story. Most venues have a few hours that drag the whole day down, often mid-afternoon or the last hour before close. If your till can export sales by hour, line them up against how many people were on in each hour:
Hour
Sales
People on
SPLH
11am–12pm
Sales: $520
People on: 6
SPLH: $87
12–1pm
Sales: $780
People on: 7
SPLH: $111
2–3pm
Sales: $210
People on: 6
SPLH: $35
3–4pm
Sales: $180
People on: 5
SPLH: $36
The 2–4pm block is the dead zone. Ending one lunch shift at 2pm, or starting the afternoon person at 4pm, lifts the day without touching the rush. Small shifts like this are where most labor savings hide.
Common mistakes
•
Using rostered hours. Rostered hours aren't worked hours. Late starts and stay-backs change the answer, so use approved timesheets.
•
Comparing different periods. A Saturday and a Tuesday will never match. Compare like with like.
•
Ignoring minimum crew. SPLH will always look poor in the first and last hour. That's normal.
•
Chasing a higher number. A very high SPLH can mean slow service and tired staff. The goal is the right number, not the highest.
Where Rosterly helps
Rosterly doesn't forecast sales or calculate SPLH for you. You'll need your sales figures from your till. What it gives you is the hours half of the equation:
•
shifts by day and location
•
approved worked hours from the time clock, with unpaid breaks removed
•
a CSV export of those hours
Copy last week forward, adjust the quiet blocks, and check the total hours before you publish. See how that looks for restaurant scheduling and for rostering in a café.