How Many Employees Should I Schedule Each Shift at My Laser Tag Arena?

Let me save you from the guessing game I played for years. Here's the simple, honest truth I wish someone had told me when I started running laser tag arenas: stop scheduling by gut, start scheduling by math.

The One Formula That Changed Everything

I remember sitting in my office after another Saturday where I had too many people standing around during a lull, then not enough during the birthday-party rush. My payroll was eating my lunch. Then a mentor—old-school, been in the business 25 years—sat me down and said, "Kory, you're not running a charity. Run the numbers."

Here's the formula I use, and it's dead simple:

Employees for a shift = That shift's average gross profit ÷ Your agreed-upon gross-profit-per-employee target

First, you and your leadership team need to agree on one number: the gross profit an average employee should produce working an average shift for an average number of guests. I use $160 per shift as my floor. Not a ceiling—a floor. If someone produces $160, they're doing average work. The stars dig deeper for upsells, add-ons, and rebookings.

Then you pull your trailing three-to-six-month gross profit by day and by daypart. Let me give you real numbers from my own arenas:

• A quiet weekday afternoon averages $480 in gross profit. $480 ÷ $160 = 3 employees on the clock.
• A Saturday peak averages $1600. $1600 ÷ $160 = 10 people on the floor.

Run that for every shift across the week. Place those bodies against when guests actually arrive—a thin open for walk-ins, a stacked crew for birthday-party-heavy afternoons, and a full team for Friday and Saturday nights. Staff where the money is, not where habit tells you.

The Top 10 Tools That Make This Easy

I've tested every scheduling tool under the sun. Here's my honest ranking, starting with the one that's free and built around exactly this method.

1. PULSE Rep Scheduling Matrix 🏆 BEST OVERALL

🛠️ Use it free now -> Rep Scheduling Matrix - no login, no spreadsheet, instant shift counts by day and daypart.

This is my baby. PULSE's free Rep Scheduling Matrix runs the whole method in your browser. It takes a weekly gross-profit target and a per-shift minimum and auto-distributes the headcount by shift, protecting your highest-value selling hours instead of spreading bodies flat across the week.

Step one - agree on the per-employee shift number. Sit down with your leadership and set the gross profit an average employee should produce on an average shift. Say it out loud: "In our laser tag arena, if you show up, take care of an average number of guests, and give average service, you should produce no less than $160 a shift in gross profit." That's your honest floor.

The people who want to make real money don't coast to $160 and clock out—they hit $160 doing average work, then dig for the next dollar of upsells, add-ons, and rebookings.

Step two - pull gross profit per shift, per day of week. Take each shift and average its gross profit by daypart over a trailing three to six months. A typical weekday afternoon brings in $480; a Saturday peak brings in $1600. Now divide by your $160 target.

The quiet afternoon needs 3 employees; the Saturday peak needs 10. Run that division for every day and every daypart and the staffing plan writes itself. No favorites, no "we've always run four people," no manager scheduling their friends—just gross profit divided by the target.

Step three - place the shifts where the receipts ring. The count tells you how many; the receipt timing tells you when. Pull the hourly sales and look at when transactions actually post. At a laser tag arena, revenue clusters in booked party blocks and weekend nights, so you staff a thin open for walk-ins, then stack game marshals, party hosts, and front-desk staff against the party schedule and the weekend rush instead of spreading bodies flat.

The matrix lets you slot those bodies against the real demand curve so coverage matches traffic instead of habit.

Because it's free, browser-only, and built by a 22-year revenue operator for exactly this question, it's my default pick for any laser tag arena owner. Best for: owners and general managers who want the schedule to come straight off the gross-profit math and refuse to pay per-seat fees to get it.

2. When I Work

Starting around $2.50 per user per month on the Essentials plan and climbing to roughly $8 per user per month with attendance and labor tools, When I Work is the most widely used shift-scheduling app for hourly laser tag arena teams. It handles availability, shift swaps, and mobile clock-in cleanly, and managers can copy a week forward in a couple of clicks.

Where it's strong is execution—getting the published schedule onto every employee's phone with reminders. Where it leaves you on your own is the *why*: it won't tell you that Saturday needs ten people. You bring the headcount math; it runs the logistics.

For an owner who already knows their per-shift targets, it's a reliable, affordable backbone.

3. Homebase 💎 BEST VALUE

This is the best value in the category because its scheduling and time-clock tier is free for a single location with unlimited employees, and paid tiers (Essentials around $24.95 per location per month, Plus around $59.95, All-in-One around $99.95) are priced per location rather than per head.

For a laser tag arena with a roster full of part-timers and seasonal crew, per-location pricing can be dramatically cheaper than per-user tools. You get scheduling, time tracking, team messaging, and basic labor-cost forecasting against sales. It's the natural pick for owners watching every dollar who still want sales-aware scheduling without an enterprise contract.

4. Deputy

Deputy runs about $4.50 per user per month for scheduling and $6 for the premium tier that adds time and attendance. Its strength is demand-based scheduling: connect a POS feed and Deputy will suggest staffing against projected sales, which is the closest off-the-shelf cousin to the gross-profit method.

It also handles compliance—break rules, overtime alerts, fair-workweek laws—which matters once your headcount grows or you add a second site. For owners who want auto-suggested coverage tied to sales data and clean labor-law guardrails, Deputy earns its price.

5. 7shifts

7shifts is purpose-built for restaurants and any venue with a bar, kitchen, or snack counter. It offers a free Comp tier for one location, with paid plans from about $34.99 per location per month (Entree) to $76.99 (The Works). It ties scheduling directly to POS sales and labor-percentage targets, so a laser tag arena with a food-and-beverage program can schedule to a sales-per-labor-hour goal out of the box.

If a chunk of your revenue rings through a register at a counter or bar, 7shifts keeps labor as a percentage of sales front and center.

6. Sling

Sling is a solid mid-tier option that combines scheduling, time tracking, and team communication in one platform. Its free plan covers basic scheduling for up to 50 employees, and paid plans start around $1.70 per user per month. It's particularly strong for shift trading and open-shift management—employees can pick up shifts without manager approval, which saves you time.

The downside? It's not built around gross-profit math, so you'll still need to bring your headcount calculations to the table.

The Bottom Line

Stop scheduling by habit. Start scheduling by math. The formula—gross profit divided by your per-employee target—is the same whether you run one arena or a chain.

And if you want to skip the spreadsheet and let a tool do the heavy lifting, start with the free PULSE Rep Scheduling Matrix. It's built by someone who's been in your shoes, for exactly this problem.

*PULSE is a tool from the CRO Syndicate—built by revenue operators, for revenue operators. No fluff, just math that works.*

*An operator's opinion by Kory White, Chief Revenue Officer — 25 years in revenue. More at PULSE · CRO Syndicate*