Content item instance scaling based on wait time

Techniques for wait time based scaling of content item instances are described herein. In some examples, a customer of a computing service provider may select a wait time threshold for joining one or more of the customer's content items that are hosted by the computing service provider. When a joining user logs-in and requests to join a content item, a calculation may be made regarding an estimated wait time for the user to join one or more existing content item instances. The estimated wait time may then be compared to the wait time threshold. A determination may then be made regarding whether or not to launch a new content item instance in response to the user's join request. In some examples, this determination may be based, at least in part, on the comparison of the estimated wait time to the wait time threshold.