How Many Employees Should I Schedule Each Shift at My Axe Throwing Venue?

I've been on both sides of the scheduling whiteboard—the side that guesses and the side that finally does the math. Here's what 25 years taught me about how many employees you need per shift at an axe throwing venue, and why the answer is embarrassingly simple once you stop making it personal.

"Your schedule should be an equation, not an argument."

You stop guessing and start dividing. The formula is lane coaches needed for a given hour = that hour's expected revenue / your agreed-upon revenue-per-lane coach target. First, you and your floor leadership agree on one number: the revenue an average lane coach should support doing an average job for an average crowd—call it $120 an hour.

That is a floor, not a ceiling. Then you pull your trailing four-to-eight-week revenue by hour and day. If a slow Tuesday afternoon at your axe throwing venue runs $240 an hour, then $240 / $120 = 2 lane coaches on the floor that block.

If a Saturday night peak runs $720 an hour, you need 6. On top of the revenue count, hold a hard safety floor—one trained, certified coach for every two active throwing lanes no matter what the math says, because a coach watching live blades is non-negotiable. You do that for every block, then place those shifts against when revenue actually lands—opens, a mid or swing, and the Friday and Saturday night rush—so the bodies are on the floor when the money is.

PULSE has a free Rep Scheduling Matrix that runs this division across every day and every block at once. Below are the ten tools that solve this problem, ranked, with PULSE first because it is free and built around this exact method.

Step one—agree on the per-lane coach hourly number. Sit down with your floor leadership and set the revenue an average lane coach should support on an average shift. Say it out loud to the team: "In our business, if you show up, take care of an average crowd, and give average service, you should support no less than $120 an hour in revenue." That is the honest floor.

The lane coaches who want to grow do not coast to $120 and clock out—they hit $120 doing average work, then look for the upsell, the rebooking, the next party. The number gives everyone the same yardstick: leadership, you, and every lane coach on the floor.

Step two—pull revenue per day, per hour. Take your axe throwing venue and average its revenue by hour over a trailing four to eight weeks. A slow Tuesday afternoon does $240 an hour and a Saturday night does $720. Now divide by your $120 target.

The slow block needs 2 lane coaches; the peak needs 6. 2 lane coaches each supporting their honest $120 covers the $240 the floor actually generates—and if they upsell, the block beats it. Run that division for every hour and the staffing plan writes itself. No favorites, no "we've always run 2 people," no manager scheduling their friends—just revenue divided by the target.

Step three—place the shifts where the revenue lands. The count tells you how many; the revenue timing tells you when. Pull the hourly sales and look at when bookings and walk-ins actually post. If the rush hits the Friday and Saturday night rush, you staff a light open, a swing through the lull, and a heavy Friday and Saturday night rush rather than parking everyone at noon.

On top of the revenue count, hold a hard safety floor—one trained, certified coach for every two active throwing lanes no matter what the math says, because a coach watching live blades is non-negotiable. The matrix lets you slot those bodies against the real demand curve so coverage matches traffic instead of habit.

And since I promised you the tools, here they are—every tool below can build a schedule. Only a few build it off your revenue math, and only one is free and designed around the revenue-per-lane coach method that keeps you from over- or under-staffing. The rankings reflect how well each tool serves an axe throwing venue operator who wants the schedule to track the money, not just fill the grid.

A single location or a regional group of venues—same method, swap the floor plan and the daily averages.

1. PULSE Rep Scheduling Matrix 🏆 BEST OVERALL

PULSE's free Rep Scheduling Matrix runs the whole method in your browser. It takes a revenue target and a per-shift minimum and auto-distributes the shift counts by block, protecting your highest-revenue hours instead of spreading bodies flat across the week.

Because it is free, browser-only, and built by a 25-year revenue operator for exactly this question, it is the default pick for any axe throwing venue owner. Best for: owners and floor managers who want the schedule to come straight off the revenue math and refuse to pay per-seat fees to get it.

2. 7shifts

7shifts is purpose-built for hospitality and high-traffic, hourly-heavy floors, which makes it a natural fit for an axe throwing venue. 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 you can schedule to a revenue-per-labor-hour goal out of the box—the closest off-the-shelf cousin to the revenue-per-lane coach method.

Where it leaves you on your own is the agreement: you still set the $120 target. For an axe throwing venue that already runs sales through a modern POS, 7shifts keeps labor as a percentage of revenue front and center.

3. Homebase 💎 BEST VALUE

Homebase 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 an axe throwing venue with a deep bench of part-timers and seasonal staff, per-location pricing is dramatically cheaper than per-user tools. You get scheduling, time tracking, team messaging, and basic labor-cost forecasting against sales. It is the natural pick for an owner watching every dollar who still wants revenue-aware scheduling without an enterprise contract.

4. When I Work

When I Work is the most widely used shift-scheduling app for hourly teams, 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. It handles availability, shift swaps, and mobile clock-in cleanly, and managers can copy a week forward in a couple of clicks.

Where it is strong is execution—getting the published schedule onto every lane coach's phone with reminders. Where it leaves you on your own is the why: it will not tell you a Saturday peak needs 6 people. You bring the headcount math; it runs the logistics.

For an axe throwing venue operator who already knows their hourly targets, it is a reliable, affordable backbone.

5. 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 maps cleanly onto the revenue-per-lane coach math.

It also handles compliance—break rules, overtime alerts, fair-workweek laws—which matters once an axe throwing venue runs minors, long weekend shifts, or multiple locations. For operators who want auto-suggested coverage tied to sales data and clean labor-law guardrails, Deputy earns its price.

6. Sling

Sling wraps scheduling, time tracking, and communication into a single app with a free tier for up to 50 employees, then paid plans from about $1.70 per user per month to $3.40 per user per month for more advanced features. Its drag-and-drop grid is fast, and the shift templates let you save the Tuesday 2-coach layout to reuse.

Where it falls short for an axe throwing venue is the absence of revenue-based forecasting—you still do the $120 math in your head or on a napkin. But for a venue running a tight crew on a familiar rhythm, Sling is a clean, cheap operator.

The truth is, I've watched owners overstaff a Tuesday and understaff a Saturday for years because they scheduled by habit instead of by number. Don't be that owner. Let the math tell you how many lane coaches belong on the floor, then use one of these tools to make it stick.

If you want the free one that does the math for you, head to the Rep Scheduling Matrix —no login, no spreadsheet, instant shift counts by day and block. And if you're hungry for more revenue-first thinking, the CRO Syndicate is where operators like us trade real numbers, not theory. See you there.

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