In order to fulfill the stringent Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC) requirements towards Fifth Generation (5G) mobile networks, early-Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (e-HARQ) schemes have been introduced, aimed at providing faster feedback and thus earlier retransmission. The performance of e-HARQ prediction strongly depends on the classification mechanism, data length, threshold value. In this paper, we propose an analytical model that incorporates e-HARQ and Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) functionalities in terms of two phases in discrete time. The model implies a fast and accurate way to get the main performance measures, and apply optimization analysis to find the optimal values used in predictor’s classification. We employ realistic data for transition probabilities obtained by means of 5G link-level simulations and conduct extensive experimental analysis. The results show that at false positive probability of 10−1, the e-HARQ prediction with the found optimal parameters can achieve around 20% of gain over HARQ at False Negative (FN) of 10−1 and around 7.5% at FN of 10−3 in terms of a mean spending time before successful delivery.