What Is a Good Sales Per Labor Hour? Benchmarks by Industry

Eric DawsonByEric Dawson Business

A good sales per labor hour (SPLH) figure depends entirely on the type of business, so no single number applies everywhere. Restaurants typically land between $40 and $200 per hour depending on the service style, retail stores run from $50 to $250 or more, and grocery stores average close to $150 as of September 2026. Manufacturing output per labor hour averages nearer $140 across the United States. Because published ranges vary this widely and sometimes contradict each other, the more reliable method is calculating a target SPLH from your own labor costs and desired labor cost percentage, then using published ranges only as a rough sanity check.

What Is a Good Sales per Labor Hour by Industry

Matching your specific segment, region, and labor cost structure defines a good SPLH far more than any single published number does. Quick-service restaurants, fine dining rooms, big-box retailers, and grocery departments all carry different figures because their staffing models, average ticket sizes, and automation levels are not comparable. The table below summarizes the broad ranges gathered from several industry sources, though as the next sections show, even sources covering the same segment disagree by a wide margin.

Business Type Typical SPLH Range
Quick-service restaurant $40 to $200
Fast-casual restaurant $55 to $120
Full-service or casual dining $40 to $100
Fine dining $35 to $150
Bar or pub $80 to $250
Coffee shop $40 to $100
Specialty retail $50 to $150
Big-box retail $120 to $250 or more
Grocery or supermarket $100 to $200 or more

Treat these figures as a starting orientation, not a pass or fail line. A fine dining restaurant posting $70 SPLH may be running efficiently for its format, while a quick-service counter posting the same $70 is likely overstaffed or short on sales. Matching the right row of the table to your actual segment matters more than the number itself.

How to Calculate Sales per Labor Hour

  1. Sales per labor hour equals total sales revenue divided by total labor hours worked over the same period.
  2. Both figures need to cover an identical timeframe, whether that is a single shift, a full day, a week, or a quarter, or the result will be meaningless.

A Worked Example with Real Numbers

Suppose a restaurant rings up $10,000 in sales during a week in which staff logged 500 labor hours across the front and back of house. Dividing $10,000 by 500 gives an SPLH of $20. That figure only becomes useful once it is compared against a target built from the same business, which is covered in the next section, rather than against an unrelated segment’s published range.

Consistency in what counts as a labor hour matters as much as the arithmetic. Some operators include only hourly staff, while others fold in salaried managers converted to an hourly equivalent. Comparing SPLH across weeks or locations only works when every calculation uses the same definition of a labor hour.

Restaurant Sales per Labor Hour Benchmarks

Restaurant SPLH benchmarks vary by service style, and published guides do not agree even within the same segment. As noted earlier, service style shapes restaurant SPLH, with benchmarks differing across segments.

Segment 7shifts Restaurant HQ RestaurantCalcs
Quick-service $100 to $150+ $100 to $200 $40 to $60
Fast casual $80 to $120 $100 to $200 $55 to $80
Full-service $50 to $80 $60 to $100 $60 to $85
Fine dining Not stated $90 to $150 $80 to $150
Bar or pub Not stated $150 to $250 $80 to $120 peak, $30 to $50 slow
Coffee shop Not stated $50 to $100 $40 to $70

Why Published Restaurant Ranges Disagree

Three widely cited restaurant guides list very different numbers for the identical quick-service segment. 7shifts publishes $100 to $150 or more, Restaurant HQ publishes $100 to $200, and RestaurantCalcs publishes just $40 to $60, a five-fold spread for supposedly the same category. None of the three cites a study, survey, or dataset behind its numbers, so none carries more research authority than the others.

Super44.ai, which compiled all three ranges side by side, notes plainly that the restaurant industry lacks a standardized, peer-reviewed SPLH benchmark. Given that gap, a restaurant operator is better served building a target from actual labor cost percentage than chasing any one of these published ranges.

Retail Sales per Labor Hour Benchmarks

Retail SPLH benchmarks split mainly by store format, with specialty shops running lower than big-box chains. Quick-service and specialty retail locations differ from big-box retail because of higher average transaction sizes and heavier automation at checkout. Grocery and supermarket formats are covered in more depth below.

Store format explains most of the spread. A specialty boutique with a small footprint and personalized service naturally moves less revenue per staffed hour than a warehouse-style retailer where a handful of employees oversee self-checkout lanes and high-volume aisles. Comparing a specialty shop’s SPLH against a big-box figure produces a misleading read on staffing efficiency.

Grocery Store SPLH by Department and Region

Grocery SPLH differs by department and region. TimeForge’s 2022 grocery dataset reported an average weekly SPLH per store of $149, a median of $155, and regional averages ranging from $105 to $180.

Department Northeast Southeast West Southwest Midwest
Grocery $452 $217 $247 $182 $117
Produce $281 $174 $217 $195 $174
Bakery or Deli $124 $42 $200 $128 $95
Meat or Seafood $265 $312 $292 $195 $151

TimeForge reported average weekly front-end SPLH of $1,134, with West Coast stores averaging $2,629. That is a department metric, so it should not be compared casually with storewide or specialty-department SPLH. Bakery and deli examples ranged from $42 in the Southeast to $200 in the West.

What Drives the Regional Swings

Compare the same department, service model, labor definition, period, and local cost structure rather than treating a regional SPLH figure as a pass or fail standard. Storewide SPLH can conceal departmental imbalances, and grocery front-end SPLH can be several times specialty-department SPLH.

TimeForge reported examples including $281 average weekly SPLH for Northeast produce versus $174 in the Southeast, $200 for West bakery and deli versus $42 in the Southeast, and $312 for Southeast meat and seafood versus $151 in the Midwest.

The TimeForge sample averaged $164,560 in weekly store sales, 1,007 scheduled hours and 1,086 worked hours per store per week, $14 cost per labor hour, and a 12 percent average labor-cost percentage with a 9 percent median. TimeForge describes its findings as a baseline rather than a definitive guide because its study covers businesses using TimeForge, includes different implementation stages and department classifications, and averages all of 2022 without examining seasonal changes.

Manufacturing Output per Labor Hour Benchmarks

That figure is not directly comparable to a restaurant or retail SPLH because it tracks units or value of goods produced rather than dollars rung at a register. User Solutions, which tracks manufacturing productivity metrics, argues the most meaningful benchmark for a manufacturing operation is not an industry average at all but its own year-over-year improvement trend, typically 3 to 5 percent annually for a well-run plant.

Revenue per employee offers a related but separate manufacturing metric, ranging from $150,000 to $500,000 or more annually depending on the sector and how automated the production line is. Neither figure should be substituted directly for restaurant or retail SPLH when setting staffing targets, since the underlying calculation and the type of output being measured differ too much.

How to Set Your Own Target SPLH

The most useful SPLH benchmark is not an industry range at all but a target built from your fully loaded labor cost and your desired labor cost percentage. That approach ties staffing decisions to your actual economics instead of a published figure from a business with different wages, rent, and average ticket size.

Divide your fully loaded labor cost per paid hour by your target labor cost percentage expressed as a decimal. The result is the SPLH your business needs to hit at that staffing level to keep labor costs on target.

Target SPLH Worked Example

An operator paying $18.00 in fully loaded labor cost per paid hour and aiming for a 32 percent labor cost target divides $18.00 by 0.32, arriving at a target SPLH of $56.25. A shift below that target can reflect scheduling inefficiency or too many staff for demand, but it is not automatic evidence that the shift needs fewer people. Check demand, constrained service, work that supports another period, and deliberate investment before cutting hours. A high SPLH achieved by cutting hours can damage customer experience and increase employee turnover.

In 2019, in Columbus, I let a dealer add a $1,395 service contract to a used 2014 Honda Fit with 61,000 miles, and six years later I have never made a claim, which is a mildly expensive way to learn that one outcome proves little. For setting your own target SPLH, use the stated labor cost and labor percentage check, not a broad range that can rationalize any schedule.

Industry-Specific Ways to Use SPLH

Retail and grocery operators lean on SPLH mainly to plan staffing around seasonal peaks while keeping checkout lines moving. Hospitality operators use it to balance speed against guest experience, training servers to upsell without letting service slip. Finance and insurance teams apply a version of the metric to balance interaction quality against conversion volume, prioritizing confident client conversations over rushed ones. Distribution and logistics operations track how quickly and accurately orders move through a facility, using SPLH-style metrics to flag bottlenecks before they slow fulfillment.

Common Mistakes When Benchmarking SPLH

Comparing your number against the wrong segment is the most common analytical error in SPLH benchmarking.

Most business owners either skip tracking SPLH altogether or track it without knowing what counts as good for their specific industry, according to Trellus AI’s guidance on the metric. SPLH also swings hour to hour and day to day within the same location, so judging staffing performance off a single shift’s number rather than a rolling average, per GORSPA’s analysis, tends to produce false alarms about overstaffing or understaffing that a longer view would not support.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is a Good SPLH for a Small Restaurant?

A small full-service or casual dining restaurant generally performs well between $40 and $100 per labor hour, while a small quick-service counter can range much wider, from $40 up to $200, depending on which published guide is used. Because guides disagree this much, a small restaurant is better off calculating its own target SPLH from its labor cost percentage rather than chasing an external number.

Is a Higher Sales per Labor Hour Always Better?

Not necessarily, since an SPLH far above your target can mean the location is understaffed and risking slow service, safety lapses, or employee burnout. A healthy SPLH sits close to the target calculated from your labor cost percentage, not as high as possible.

How Often Should SPLH Be Calculated?

SPLH is typically tracked by shift, day, and week, since the figure moves hour to hour based on customer traffic. Reviewing it as a rolling weekly or monthly average, rather than off any single shift, gives a more reliable read on whether staffing is actually out of line.

Does SPLH Work the Same Way for Manufacturing?

Manufacturing tracks a related but different figure, output per labor hour, which measures units or value of goods produced rather than dollars in sales. The U.S. manufacturing average is near $140, but that number is not directly comparable to a restaurant or retail SPLH figure.

What Counts as a Labor Hour in the SPLH Formula?

A labor hour is any hour worked by staff whose time is included in the calculation, which most operators define as hourly employees plus any salaried staff converted to an hourly equivalent. Using a consistent definition across every period being compared matters more than which definition is chosen.

Setting a good sales per labor hour target starts with your own fully loaded labor cost and desired labor cost percentage, then uses published industry ranges only as a loose sanity check rather than a strict pass or fail line. Segment, region, and local wage levels all push the number in different directions, so the most dependable benchmark will always be the one built from your own numbers.

References

Sources read in September 2026.

Eric Dawson

I'm Eric Dawson, and I write The Money Watch from north Columbus, Ohio. Most of what I cover comes from my own life: renting, a 2014 Honda Fit, parking, computers, food and the bills behind all of it. I spent four years in an apartment-property office and eleven on a distributor's operations desk, reading leases and invoices. Where you need real information, I research the maker's or agency's own page and independent sources and report what they publish. I don't give tax, investment, legal or medical advice.