Project the volume
Normal daily orders × the share that contact support gives a normal day's conversations. Multiply by the BFCM multiplier for a day of Black Friday–Cyber Monday week.
Black Friday Support Volume Calculator
See how many support conversations to expect each day of Black Friday–Cyber Monday week, how many AI can answer, and how many agents you need. With the default assumptions (500 orders a day, 10% contacting support, 3× BFCM volume, 50% answered by AI, 6 minutes per human conversation and 6 hours per agent), that is 150 conversations a day, 75 of them for your team, and 2 agents a day. The defaults are illustrations, not benchmarks: replace them with your own numbers.
During BFCM week
- Conversations per day
- 15050 on a normal day
- Answered by AI
- 7550% of conversations
- Handled by your team
- 7525 on a normal day
- Agent-hours needed per day
- 7.5at 6 minutes a conversation
- Agents needed per day
- 21 on a normal day
What to plan for
Plan for 2 agents a day during BFCM week, 1 more than the 1 agent a normal day needs, covering about 7.5 hours of conversations. Without AI answering, you would need 3 agents. Test the AI on shipping cut-offs, returns and discount terms before Black Friday so the share you're counting on holds up.
Assumes every day of the week sees the same multiplier and each conversation takes one agent's full attention. Agents who handle several chats at once need fewer hours; the busiest hours of a day need more people than the daily average suggests.
Method
How it works.
Black Friday is 27 November 2026 and Cyber Monday is 30 November. For context, Adobe forecasts $15.1 billion of US online spending on Cyber Monday 2026 and $12.9 billion on Black Friday, against $275.1 billion for 1 November–31 December, about $4.5 billion a day. That puts Cyber Monday at roughly 3.3× an average holiday-season day. Adobe, 28 Sep 2026 ↗
Split AI and people
The share the AI can answer comes off the top. Everything else is a conversation your team handles.
Turn it into people
Human conversations × minutes per conversation ÷ 60 gives agent-hours. Divide by the hours each agent spends on conversations and round up to whole agents.
Good questions
Frequently asked questions.
How much does support volume increase during Black Friday?
It depends on your promotions and traffic, so the calculator asks for your own multiplier and uses 3× only as a starting assumption. For context, Adobe forecasts $15.1 billion of US online spending on Cyber Monday 2026 and $12.9 billion on Black Friday, against $275.1 billion for 1 November–31 December, about $4.5 billion a day. That puts Cyber Monday at roughly 3.3× an average holiday-season day. That describes US online spending overall, not any one store.
What contact rate should I use?
Your own: support conversations divided by orders over a normal month. The 10% default is an assumption for illustration, not a benchmark. Contact rates vary with product complexity, shipping times and how clearly order updates are sent.
How many agents do I need for Black Friday?
Multiply human conversations by the average handle time and divide by 60 to get agent-hours, then divide by the hours each agent spends on conversations and round up. With the defaults: 75 human conversations × 6 minutes = 7.5 agent-hours, or 2 agents at 6 hours each.
What share of Black Friday questions can AI answer?
It depends on how much of your shipping, returns, discount and product information the AI can use, and whether it can look up orders. The 50% default is an assumption; test the AI with real customer questions and use the share you see.
Does this account for chat concurrency and hourly peaks?
No. It treats every conversation as one agent's full attention, which suits email and one-at-a-time chat. Agents who handle several chats at once need fewer hours, and the busiest hours of a day need more people than the daily average suggests.
Get AI answers in place before the rush.
Start free, publish your shipping, returns and order-status answers, and test them before Black Friday.