Free tool · Support metrics
First response time calculator
Enter tickets or paste a CSV export to get average, median and 90th percentile first response time, plus SLA compliance.
Runs in your browser. Nothing you paste is uploaded.
About this tool
Response time calculator: how it works
First response time is the gap between a customer opening a ticket and the first human or AI reply. It is the metric customers feel most, and the one most SLAs are written around.
Report the median, not just the average. One ticket that sat over a weekend can double the average while most customers got a reply in minutes. The calculator shows both and warns you when they drift apart, which is the sign that a few outliers deserve a look.
If your SLA only runs during office hours, turn on business hours. A ticket that arrives Friday at 5pm and gets a reply Monday at 9am counts as zero minutes, not 64 hours. For a live view across every ticket, Ticketdesk tracks this in analytics, and you can pull raw timestamps from the API.
What it does
- Average, median and 90th percentile FRT
- SLA target and compliance percentage
- Business hours mode (Monday to Friday)
- Paste a CSV export of timestamps or minutes
- Per-ticket breach list and CSV export
Building on Ticketdesk?
Automate tickets, AI agents and inboxes from your own code.
FAQ
Response time calculator: common questions
How do you calculate first response time?
For each ticket, subtract the created time from the time of the first reply. Average FRT is the sum divided by the number of tickets. Median FRT is the middle value when you sort them.
What is a good first response time?
Common targets are under 1 hour for urgent tickets, 4 business hours for email and under 2 minutes for live chat. An AI agent can bring email FRT down to seconds for questions it can answer.
How do I calculate SLA compliance?
Divide the tickets answered within the target by all tickets. If 46 of 50 tickets got a reply within 4 hours, SLA compliance is 92%. Set your target in the SLA box and the breaches are flagged in the ticket list.
Can I paste data from my help desk?
Yes. Switch to Paste CSV and paste two columns: created and first response. ISO dates like 2026-10-20 09:12 work, headers and extra columns are ignored. You can also paste one number of minutes per line.
How are business hours counted?
Only minutes between your opening and closing hour, Monday to Friday, in your local time zone. Holidays are not excluded. To keep an eye on tickets as they come in, use the SLA countdown timer.