Ops & productivity
Flat-Rate Unlimited-Seat Agency Capacity Planner
Resource and capacity planning for 5 to 25 person agencies and studios: one flat account price, unlimited internal seats, free contractor and bench slots.
Founder thesis
Every resourcing tool bills per person, per seat, or per user, so agencies with a swinging bench of freelancers pay for slots they never schedule. Float has run independently since 2011 and Resource Guru counts 60,000+ people scheduled, so the demand and the billing pain are both proven. A flat account price with free contractor slots is the wedge, and it is unproven.
What others got wrong
Resource Guru bills every person added, whether they log in or not, and charges for placeholders at the per person rate plus rooms and equipment separately.
Runn meters per resource seat with a 20-seat minimum.
Scoro meters users and apps from USD 17 per user per month with a 5-user minimum.
Float makes unscheduled guests free but still meters every scheduled seat at USD 7-12 per person per month.
What should work
Bill one flat monthly account fee, target USD 49-99, for unlimited internal seats and unlimited unscheduled contractor slots, and do not bill non-human resources.
Keep the workflow deliberately small: one availability and utilization view, not a full planning suite.
Win on onboarding simplicity, not lock-in, because allocations, rate cards and projects export out.
What kills it
- Incumbent price floors are already USD 5-12 per person per month, so a flat fee may not look cheap enough to switch for.
- No lock-in. Allocations, rate cards and projects export out, so a copycat or a spreadsheet can pull buyers back.
- A flat fee could lose money on heavy usage, and no competitor publishes a cost structure to check against.
- The strongest pain evidence is snippet-only and unverified, and whether agencies will actually switch is unvalidated.
What users want
4Pricing that fits a roster that changes month to month.
One agency owner wrote that Resource Guru "would be perfect" but its per-user pricing "makes no sense when I have people dropping in and out of availability all the time"; the thread returned 403 so the quote is unconfirmed.
A tool that is not too heavy for a small shop.
A 10-person agency reportedly found every option "too bloated / complex for a small agency".
Planning that does not go stale.
A 2026 thread reportedly says "it always ends up being a mess again", with replies blaming buy-in and leadership alignment rather than features.
Not paying for people they do not schedule.
Resource Guru's own pricing FAQ states customers are charged for people "whether they log in or not" and placeholders are "charged at the per person rate".
- Sources
- 12
- Checked
- 9
- Competitors
- 4
- Gaps
- 5
- Page checked
- 9 · 75%
- Snippet only
- 3 · 25%
- Documented
- 4 · 36%
- Interpreted
- 7 · 64%
- pricing4
- market4
- complaint3
- playbook1
Competitors
4- FloatFree
Parsed from public pricing blurbs (entry paid tier when available). Max in set: $1/mo.
| Competitor | From | Free tier | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Float | Free | Yes | float.com✓ |
| Resource Guru | See notes | — | resourceguruapp.com✓ |
| Runn | See notes | — | runn.io✓ |
| Scoro | See notes | — | scoro.com✓ |
What customers complain about
5| Gap | Src |
|---|---|
Per-person billing penalises agencies whose contractor roster swings. One agency owner wrote that Resource Guru "would be perfect" but its per-user pricing "makes no sense when I have people dropping in and out of availability all the time". The thread returned 403 and was not read, so treat the quote as unconfirmed. | |
Incumbent tools may be too heavy for small shops. A 10-person agency reportedly looked at Float, Runn, Resource Guru and Kantata and found every option either bloated or too generic. The thread returned 403 and was not read, so treat it as unconfirmed. | |
Resource Guru bills people added, not people active. Its pricing FAQ says you are charged for people "whether they log in or not and regardless of their permissions", extra placeholders are "charged at the per person rate", and non-human resources are billed separately. This is confirmed on the pricing page. | |
Tools fail on data quality and adoption. A 2026 thread reportedly says "it always ends up being a mess again", with replies blaming buy-in, transparency and leadership alignment rather than features. The thread was not read, so treat it as unconfirmed. | |
No incumbent offers a flat per-account price with unlimited seats and free contractor slots. Float meters scheduled people, Resource Guru meters all people plus placeholders plus non-human resources, Runn meters seats with a 20-seat minimum, and Scoro meters users with a 5-user minimum. Whether buyers will switch for a flat model is unproven. |
Documented Interpreted
How competitors find customers
3| Tactic | Src |
|---|---|
| Float put over a decade into word of mouth plus SEM and paid search. Founder Glenn Rogers says "There's only one to two channels that work effectively for your style of business" and "We've spent 10 years refining keywords, understanding its impact on SEO." Float reports 4,500+ customers and 220,000+ people scheduled. | seeds.how✓ |
| Resource Guru runs a resource-management content library and newsletter, promoted as "Get resource and project management insights trusted by 20,000+ professionals". It reports 60,000+ people scheduled across 100+ countries. | resourceguruapp.com✓ |
| Float seeds reviews from active customers: it shows "#1 in resource management, 8 seasons running" with G2 4.3 across 2,000+ reviews and Capterra 4.5 across 1,600+ reviews, and both Float and Resource Guru sit in third-party "best agency resource management software" shortlists with affiliate links. No published conversion metric turned up. | thedigitalprojectmanager.com✓ |
Your angle & pricing wedge
| Piece | Claim | Src |
|---|---|---|
| Angle | A deliberately small, flat-per-account resourcing tool for 5 to 25 person agencies: unlimited internal seats, unlimited free contractor and bench slots, one availability and utilization view, and an API/MCP so an assistant can update allocations. The API and MCP are table stakes, not a differentiator, since Float and Resource Guru both ship them, so the edge rests only on the flat price plus a reduced workflow. | |
| Wedge | Bill one flat monthly account fee, target USD 49-99, for unlimited internal seats and unlimited unscheduled contractor slots, and do not bill non-human resources. On a consistent basis, a 20-person agency that also schedules 10 rotating freelancers is about USD 140-210 per month on Float, roughly USD 150-360 on Resource Guru, about USD 210 on Runn Lite, and about USD 340-510 on Scoro, so a USD 49-99 flat account is roughly 30-85% below the low-end configurations. |
How others got traction
4| Move | Why | Src |
|---|---|---|
| Float grew to 4,500+ customers and 220,000+ scheduled people as an independent, never-VC-funded company since 2011 by focusing on one or two acquisition channels. | Founder Glenn Rogers says "There's only one to two channels that work effectively for your style of business", and Float's were word of mouth plus SEM and paid marketing. | seeds.how✓ |
| Float prices per scheduled person and makes unscheduled viewers free, against Resource Guru's per-person billing. | The pricing page says "You only pay for team members you add to the Schedule for resourcing", which answers Resource Guru's rule of billing people whether they log in or not. | float.com✓ |
| Resource Guru keeps a free fully-featured trial and self-serve tiers from USD 5 per person per month instead of hiding pricing behind sales. | A low entry price plus a free trial feeds the top of the funnel for a product whose pitch is simplicity, and it sets the anchor a new entrant must undercut. | resourceguruapp.com✓ |
| Float publishes quantified customer outcomes. | Metalab is quoted saying "Float increased our resourcing efficiency by 50%" and Atlassian's production team went from 40% to 90% on-time delivery, which is how ops leaders justify a per-seat line item. | float.com✓ |
Market heat
Float self-reports 4,500+ customers and 220,000+ people scheduled, growing independently since 2011.
Resource Guru self-reports 60,000+ people being scheduled in 100+ countries on its pricing page.
Runn self-reports over 15k users worldwide on its pricing page.
Scoro sells per-user combinations from EUR 15 / USD 17 per user per month with a 5-user minimum.
An independently published 2026 agency resourcing shortlist lists 10 tools, including monday and Wrike, which now bundle capacity planning, and places Scoro in that list.
More ▾
Revenue signals
4| Signal | Src |
|---|---|
Float: 4,500+ customers and 220,000+ people scheduled, independent since 2011. Self-reported, not independently audited. | float.com✓ |
Resource Guru: 60,000+ people being scheduled in 100+ countries, self-reported; backed by LocalGlobe and Index Ventures. | resourceguruapp.com✓ |
Runn: over 15k users worldwide, self-reported on its pricing page. | runn.io✓ |
Self-serve pricing runs from about USD 5 per month to USD 57 per user per month, roughly USD 100-1,100 per month for a 20-person agency before add-ons. Whether a flat USD 49-99 account is profitable at that usage is unknown, since no competitor publishes a cost structure. | scoro.com✓ |
Should you build this?
The category is real and monetized: Float reports 4,500+ customers and 220,000+ people scheduled while never taking VC, Resource Guru reports 60,000+ people scheduled, and Runn reports 15k users. The wedge is not novel, though: ten-plus tools compete, monday and Wrike bundle capacity planning from about USD 10-12 per user per month, price floors are already USD 5-12 per person per month, switching data exports out so there is no lock-in, and both Float and Resource Guru already ship MCP access. A flat fee can only win on the fluctuating-roster and occasional-user segment plus genuinely simpler onboarding, and the strongest pain evidence is snippet-only and unverified. Test first: recruit 20 agencies of 5 to 25 people that already pay for a resourcing tool or schedule in spreadsheets, get their last three monthly invoices plus the contractors they added, and have them price a flat USD 79 per month against current spend. Kill it if fewer than 6 of 20 will pre-pay, if fewer than 8 were billed for seats or placeholders they did not schedule in at least one of the last three months, or if most say they will not leave their current tool for a simpler one regardless of price.
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All sources
12| Source | Kind | Status | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| pricing | page checked | 2026-09-18 | |
| pricing | page checked | 2026-09-18 | |
| pricing | page checked | 2026-09-18 | |
| pricing | page checked | 2026-09-18 | |
| complaint | snippet only | 2026-09-18 | |
| complaint | snippet only | 2026-09-18 | |
| complaint | snippet only | 2026-09-18 | |
| market | page checked | 2026-09-18 | |
| market | page checked | 2026-09-18 | |
| market | page checked | 2026-09-18 | |
| playbook | page checked | 2026-09-18 | |
| market | page checked | 2026-09-18 |