AI Trust & Safety Moderation Staffing Forecaster
Blend flagged content, manual handling time, automation deflection, and labor rates to forecast the human reviewer headcount and operating expense your trust and safety program needs each month.
Headcount forecasts are directional. Validate with workforce management systems, actual shrinkage data, and regional labor constraints before signing staffing contracts.
Examples
- 18,000 daily flags, 6-minute reviews, 35% deflection, $38/hour, 7.5-hour shifts ⇒ 11,700 human reviews, 1,170.00 review-hours, 156.00 FTEs, $44,460.00 daily payroll ($1,333,800.00 per 30-day month), 0.00 spare review-hours when 156 people are scheduled.
- 7,500 daily flags, 4-minute reviews, 55% deflection, $32/hour, 7-hour shifts ⇒ 3,375 human reviews, 225.00 review-hours, 32.14 FTEs (33 rounded), $7,200.00 daily payroll ($216,000.00 per 30-day month), 6.00 spare review-hours.
FAQ
How can I model multiple risk tiers?
Run the calculator separately for each queue (e.g., CSAM, fraud, IP) with their own handle times and combine the headcount to build a total staffing plan.
What if reviewers work split shifts or part-time?
Adjust the hours-per-FTE input to represent the productive hours you expect per reviewer across all shifts.
Can I include QA sampling or policy coaching hours?
Increase the handle minutes or decrease the productive hours per FTE to absorb QA, coaching, and meeting time into the staffing requirement.
How do I factor in language or market coverage?
Model each language separately, then add buffers for overnight or dual-language coverage based on localized SLAs.
Additional Information
- Hourly cost should bundle wages, benefits, equipment, facilities, and vendor margins for outsourced teams.
- Automation deflection captures ML, LLM, or heuristic filters that close cases without human intervention—update it after policy or model changes.
- Rounding fractional FTEs up protects SLAs—use the spare-hours output to decide whether you can flex seats to other queues.
- Run the model weekly with fresh volume to adjust vendor seats, schedule overtime, or calibrate burst capacity contracts.