Every calculator on this site starts from the same simple idea: pay is a rate multiplied by time. A salary of $62,400 a year, an hourly wage of $30, and a biweekly check of $2,400 are three ways of describing the exact same job — if you work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. The confusion starts because employers quote pay in whichever unit sounds best, and because real life rarely matches the tidy 40 × 52 assumption. Unpaid time off, a 37.5-hour workweek, overtime, and pay-period schedules all change the real numbers.

That is why each calculator lets you change the hours per week and weeks per year. If you get two weeks of unpaid leave, set weeks per year to 50 and watch your effective hourly rate climb — the same salary spread over fewer hours is worth more per hour. If your job is scheduled for 37.5 hours a week, as many office and government jobs are, your hourly equivalent is higher than the standard shortcut suggests.

A quick mental shortcut worth memorizing: to convert an annual salary to an approximate hourly rate, divide by 2,000 and drop the thousands. A $50,000 salary ÷ 2,000 ≈ $25/hour. To go the other way, double the hourly rate and add three zeros: $22/hour × 2 ≈ $44,000 a year. Our calculators use the exact 2,080-hour figure (or your custom inputs) instead of the rounded shortcut, so the numbers you plan with are the numbers on your pay stub.

Why we publish guides alongside calculators

A calculator gives you a number; a guide tells you whether that number is fair, legal, and useful. Knowing that your salary works out to $28.85 an hour is only helpful if you also know whether similar workers earn more, whether your extra hours should be paid at time-and-a-half, and why the amount deposited in your bank is hundreds of dollars less than the gross figure. Each guide on SalaryCalc is written to stand on its own — original explanations, worked examples with real arithmetic, and practical steps you can act on — and each links to the calculator that applies its lesson.

Figures in our guides reflect widely used US conventions: the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for overtime, the standard 2,080-hour work year, and 2026 federal payroll tax rates (6.2% Social Security up to the annual wage base and 1.45% Medicare). State rules vary, and where they do, we say so. If your situation involves a dispute about unpaid wages, a misclassification, or back pay, a guide is a starting point — your state labor department or an employment attorney is the next step.

How the salary-to-hourly conversion works

The formula is simple: hourly rate = annual salary ÷ (hours per week × weeks per year). For a standard full-time schedule that denominator is 40 × 52 = 2,080 hours, so a $60,000 salary divides into $28.85 an hour. Weekly pay is the salary divided by 52, biweekly pay is the salary divided by 26, and monthly pay is the salary divided by 12. Daily pay assumes a five-day week, so it is the weekly amount divided by five.

Worked examples

Example with a shorter week: Maria earns $58,500 but her position is scheduled at 37.5 hours a week. Her hourly equivalent is $58,500 ÷ (37.5 × 52) = $30.00 an hour — noticeably more than the $28.13 the standard 40-hour shortcut would suggest. Example with unpaid leave: James earns $62,400 and takes four weeks of unpaid leave each summer, so he works 48 weeks. His pay per hour actually worked is $62,400 ÷ (40 × 48) = $32.50, even though his paychecks are based on the salary. Comparing job offers? Always compare the rate for hours actually worked.

When this conversion matters

• Comparing a salaried offer with hourly work — freelancing, contracting or a second job quoted by the hour.
• Judging unpaid overtime: if you are salaried and regularly work 50-hour weeks, your effective hourly rate drops by 20%. Run the calculator with 50 hours to see it.
• Negotiating: asking for "$2 more an hour" equals roughly $4,160 a year full-time — a useful translation in either direction. Our Raise Calculator does this math for you.
• Budgeting: biweekly and monthly figures here are the gross amounts to plan bills around before deductions.

How the hourly-to-salary conversion works

The formula runs in reverse of the salary conversion: annual pay = hourly wage × hours per week × weeks per year. At the standard 40 × 52 = 2,080 hours, every $1 an hour is worth $2,080 a year — which is why a $2/hour difference between two job offers is really a $4,160-a-year difference. Monthly pay is the annual figure divided by 12, and biweekly pay is the annual figure divided by 26.

Worked examples

Comparing offers, honestly: Offer A is $24/hour with a guaranteed 40 hours and about 5 hours of overtime most weeks. Offer B is a $52,000 salary. Base pay for A is $49,920, but 5 weekly overtime hours at time-and-a-half ($36) add roughly $9,360 a year — about $59,280 total, ahead of the salary, though the hours are longer. Offer B, meanwhile, might include paid holidays that A does not. Run both through this calculator and the Overtime Calculator, then weigh benefits and schedule, not just the headline number. Our salary vs hourly guide lists everything else to compare.

Rules of thumb worth knowing

• The double-and-add-zeros shortcut: hourly × 2, then add three zeros ≈ annual salary ($28/hr ≈ $56,000; the exact figure is $58,240).
• Every $1/hour ≈ $2,080/year full-time — remember it during negotiations.
• Unpaid weeks matter: a $30/hour job with 4 unpaid weeks pays like a $27.69/hour job worked year-round.

How raise math works

A percentage raise multiplies your current pay: new pay = current pay × (1 + raise %). A 4% raise on $55,000 is $55,000 × 1.04 = $57,200 — an extra $2,200 a year, $183.33 a month, or $84.62 per biweekly check. A dollar raise simply adds: a $1.50/hour raise at 40 hours a week adds $1.50 × 2,080 = $3,120 a year. This calculator handles both directions and translates between salary and hourly so you can judge an offer in whichever unit your employer uses.

Worked examples

Judging a raise against inflation: if prices rose 3% this year and your raise is 3%, your purchasing power is flat — you are not behind, but not ahead either. A raise below inflation is, in real terms, a small pay cut, which is useful context (stated calmly and factually) in a negotiation. And remember the raise compounds: it lifts every future percentage raise, overtime rate and percentage-based retirement contribution with it. A raise you win this year keeps paying you every year after.

How overtime pay is calculated

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), most hourly (non-exempt) employees in the US must be paid at least 1.5 times their regular rate for every hour worked beyond 40 in a single workweek. The calculation has three steps: (1) regular pay = regular hours × base rate; (2) overtime pay = overtime hours × base rate × 1.5; (3) add them together. At $22/hour with 8 overtime hours: $880 regular + (8 × $33) $264 overtime = $1,144 for the week. Double time (2×) is extra — federal law does not require it, but California law and many union contracts and employer policies do, typically for hours beyond 12 in a day or on a seventh consecutive day.

Worked examples

What regular overtime is worth over a year: a worker earning $20/hour who averages 6 overtime hours a week earns an extra 6 × $30 × 52 = $9,360 a year — nearly five extra months of base pay. That is why an hourly offer with dependable overtime can beat a modestly higher salary. It is also why losing overtime (a schedule change, a reclassification) can quietly cut income by 15–20%; if that happens, rerun your numbers here and in the Hourly to Salary Calculator before agreeing to a "similar" salary.

The basic rule: 40 hours, then time-and-a-half

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) — the federal law that sets minimum wage and overtime rules in the United States — requires covered employers to pay non-exempt employees at least one and a half times their regular rate of pay for every hour worked over 40 in a workweek. That premium rate is universally nicknamed "time-and-a-half": you receive your normal pay for the hour, plus a half-rate premium on top. If your regular rate is $20 an hour, your overtime rate is $30 an hour. Work 46 hours in a week and your gross pay is (40 × $20) + (6 × $30) = $800 + $180 = $980.

Three details in that rule matter more than most workers realize. First, overtime is measured by the workweek — a fixed, recurring period of seven consecutive days set by your employer — not by the day and not by the pay period. Second, it counts hours actually worked: paid vacation, holidays and sick days generally do not count toward the 40, because you did not work them. Third, the weeks stand alone. A 50-hour week followed by a 30-hour week is not an "average" of 40 and 40; the first week earns 10 overtime hours, full stop.

Who gets overtime — and who does not

Overtime rights depend on whether you are classified as non-exempt (covered) or exempt (not covered). Nearly all hourly workers are non-exempt. Salaried workers can be either: an employee is exempt only if they pass two tests set by the US Department of Labor — a salary basis test (paid a fixed salary above a minimum threshold, not docked for partial weeks) and a duties test (their actual job duties must be primarily executive, administrative, professional, outside-sales, or certain computer roles, as the regulations define them).

The most common misunderstanding in American workplaces is that a job title or the mere fact of a salary settles the question. It does not. A salaried "assistant manager" who mostly stocks shelves and runs a register may well be non-exempt and owed overtime, regardless of the title on the offer letter. Misclassification — sometimes accidental, sometimes not — is one of the most frequent sources of wage claims. If you are paid a salary, regularly work well beyond 40 hours, and your duties look a lot like the hourly staff around you, it is worth reading the Department of Labor's fact sheets or asking your state labor agency how the tests apply.

How the "regular rate" is really calculated

Time-and-a-half multiplies your regular rate, which is not always the same as your base hourly wage. Federal rules say the regular rate includes most forms of pay for the week: base wages, shift differentials, and non-discretionary bonuses (the kind promised in advance for hitting a target, staying through a busy season, or perfect attendance). The general formula is: total pay for the week (excluding the overtime premium itself) ÷ total hours worked.

Here is why that matters. Suppose you earn $18 an hour, work 44 hours, and also earned a $44 weekly production bonus. Your total straight-time pay is (44 × $18) + $44 = $836, so your regular rate is $836 ÷ 44 = $19.00. Your overtime premium is half of that rate — $9.50 — for each of the 4 overtime hours: $38 extra. Total gross: $836 + $38 = $874. If payroll simply paid 1.5 × $18 for the overtime hours, you would get $866 — close, but $8 short, week after week. Small gaps like this are exactly what a personal hours-and-pay log helps you catch. Our Overtime Pay Calculator uses your base rate for a quick estimate; use your pay stub's stated regular rate for exact figures.

Double time and state rules that pay more

Federal law never requires double time (2×). But some state laws and many employment contracts do. California is the best-known example: overtime there is generally time-and-a-half after 8 hours in a day and double time after 12 hours in a day, with special rules for the seventh consecutive day of work. Alaska, Colorado and Nevada also have daily-overtime provisions in some form. Union agreements, hospital schedules and holiday policies often add double time voluntarily. The practical lesson: federal law is the floor, not the ceiling — your state law, employee handbook or contract may give you more, and the most generous applicable rule is the one that counts.

Common ways workers lose overtime money

• Working "off the clock": answering messages, setting up, or finishing tasks before clocking in. Time you work is time that counts, whether or not anyone approved it in advance — though an employer may discipline you for violating an overtime-approval policy, it generally still has to pay for hours it knew or should have known you worked.
• Automatic meal deductions: some time systems deduct 30 minutes for lunch whether you took it or not. If you regularly work through lunch, that is 2.5 phantom unpaid hours a week.
• Being called "exempt" or an "independent contractor" without meeting the tests. Labels do not override duties and economic reality.
• Comp time instead of cash: private-sector employers generally cannot bank your overtime as future paid time off in place of overtime pay (public-sector employers can, under specific rules).
• Salary-only thinking: "I'm salaried, so overtime isn't a thing." For non-exempt salaried workers, it absolutely is — the salary is converted to a regular rate and hours over 40 are paid at time-and-a-half on top.

What to do if your overtime looks wrong

Start by keeping records: dates, start and stop times, breaks, and your pay stubs. Compare your stub against your log using the calculation method above. Many discrepancies are honest payroll errors, and a calm conversation with payroll — with your records in hand — fixes most of them. If that fails, you can file a wage claim with your state labor department or a complaint with the US Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, which investigates and can recover back wages. There are time limits on claims (generally two years under the FLSA, three if the violation was willful), so do not sit on a problem. Keeping two years of stubs and logs is a habit worth building today, not after something goes wrong.

Try it: estimate your own overtime week with the Overtime Pay Calculator, then convert your yearly earnings with the Hourly to Salary Calculator.

What the two pay structures really mean

A salaried employee is paid a fixed annual amount, divided evenly across pay periods, regardless of small week-to-week swings in hours. A salary of $58,000 arrives as $2,230.77 every biweekly check (before deductions), in slow weeks and crunch weeks alike. An hourly employee is paid for each hour worked: the paycheck grows with extra shifts and overtime, and shrinks with unpaid time off. At $27 an hour and a steady 40 hours a week, that is $56,160 a year — slightly less than the salary above, before we count a single overtime hour.

Pay structure often travels with legal classification. Most hourly workers are non-exempt, meaning the FLSA guarantees them overtime at time-and-a-half after 40 hours a week. Salaried workers may be exempt or non-exempt depending on their duties and salary level. But do not let the labels do the thinking: a salaried non-exempt worker still earns overtime, and an hourly worker in a job with no overtime available never sees the premium. What matters is your total compensation for the hours you will actually work — so let us compare the two structures on the things that actually differ.

The case for salary

• Predictable income. Every check is the same size, which makes rent, loan payments and automatic savings effortless to plan.
• Paid time off is usually built in. Vacations, holidays and sick days typically do not reduce a salaried paycheck, while unpaid leave directly cuts an hourly one.
• Schedule dignity. Salaried roles often come with more flexibility — leaving early for a dentist appointment rarely requires paperwork or lost pay.
• Benefits access. Salaried positions more commonly include employer health insurance, retirement matching and bonuses, though plenty of hourly employers offer them too.

The catch is invisible overtime. Salaried exempt employees are not paid extra for long weeks, so a "$70,000" job that routinely takes 55 hours a week pays an effective $24.48 an hour — less than a $26/hour job at 40 hours. Always convert a salary offer using the hours the job will really take, which the hiring manager's most honest answer and your future team's calendar will hint at. Our Salary to Hourly Calculator lets you test 40, 45, 50 and 55-hour weeks in seconds.

The case for hourly pay

• Every extra hour pays. With time-and-a-half after 40 hours, staying late is compensated at a premium instead of donated. Six overtime hours a week at $27/hour adds about $12,636 a year — pushing that $27/hour job to roughly $68,800, ahead of our example salary with none of its unpaid crunch time.
• A hard boundary around work. When the clock stops, pay stops — which gives both you and your employer a reason to protect your off hours.
• Transparent value. Your rate is a single number that is easy to compare across employers, easy to negotiate, and easy to raise with a shift differential or certification.
• Flexibility to scale income. Extra shifts, seasonal surges and second gigs stack directly onto hourly pay in a way they cannot onto a fixed salary.

The trade-offs are real: income varies with scheduled hours, slow seasons can cut checks sharply, unpaid time off is truly unpaid, and budgeting takes more discipline. Hourly workers who smooth income by budgeting from their lowest typical month — and banking overtime-season surpluses — report far less stress than those who budget from their best month.

A side-by-side example

Notice the pattern: the winner flips entirely on hours. The salary wins when the hourly job is part-time-ish or seasonal; the hourly job wins when overtime is steady; and the salary quietly loses whenever its "40-hour" job is fiction.

So which is better for you?

Choose based on your situation, not a slogan. If your hours are capped, your employer's overtime is rare, and your budget craves stability — or the salaried role carries strong benefits and real PTO — salary is usually the better deal. If your field pays overtime generously (healthcare, trades, logistics, manufacturing, public safety), you like the ability to trade time for money on your terms, and you can budget on a variable income, hourly can out-earn salary by a wide margin. Also weigh trajectory: salaried roles sometimes come with clearer promotion ladders and titles that travel well on a résumé, while skilled hourly rates can jump quickly when certifications are in demand.

Whatever you choose, negotiate with both numbers in hand. Convert the offer to the other unit before you answer — it takes thirty seconds with the calculators on this site, and it is the single most common place job seekers leave money on the table.

Try it: convert both of your offers with the Hourly to Salary Calculator and the Salary to Hourly Calculator, then model the overtime with the Overtime Pay Calculator.

The two numbers on every pay stub

Gross pay is everything you earn before anything is taken out: hourly wages or salary, plus overtime, bonuses, commissions and tips. Net pay — take-home pay — is what remains after taxes and deductions, and it is the number your budget actually lives on. For many US workers, net pay lands somewhere between 70% and 85% of gross. Understanding the lines in between is not trivia: it is how you spot payroll errors, judge whether a raise truly helps, and set a savings rate you can keep.

Line 1: FICA — Social Security and Medicare

Every US paycheck pays FICA taxes, and unlike income tax, there is no standard deduction or filing-status adjustment. Social Security takes 6.2% of wages up to an annual wage cap ($184,500 for 2026), and Medicare takes 1.45% with no cap (plus an extra 0.9% on high earnings). Combined, that is a flat 7.65% off the top for most workers — on a $1,200 week, $91.80 before anything else happens. Your employer pays an equal 7.65% on its side, which is worth remembering when you compare employee pay with self-employment income, where you owe both halves (15.3%) yourself.

Line 2: Federal income tax withholding

This is the most variable line. Your employer withholds federal income tax based on your pay, your pay frequency, and the Form W-4 you filed — your marital/filing status, other jobs, dependents and adjustments. Withholding is an estimate collected gradually; your real tax bill is settled when you file your return, which is why most people get a refund (they over-withheld) or occasionally owe. A larger paycheck — say, one heavy with overtime — is withheld as if you earned that amount all year, so the withholding percentage on that particular check can look steep even though your actual tax rate has not changed.

Line 3: State and local taxes

Most states tax income too, with rates and rules that vary widely — from no income tax at all (states like Texas, Florida and Washington) to top rates above 10% in a few high-tax states. Some cities and counties add a local layer. This is the main reason two workers with identical salaries in different states bring home noticeably different net pay.

Line 4: Pre-tax deductions — the ones that help you

Many benefit deductions come out before income tax is calculated, which quietly lowers your taxable pay: traditional 401(k) or 403(b) contributions, health insurance premiums under a typical employer plan, HSA and FSA contributions, and commuter benefits. A $100 pre-tax 401(k) contribution might reduce your take-home pay by only about $78, because you saved roughly $22 in taxes along the way (the exact figure depends on your bracket and state). FICA, note, still applies to 401(k) contributions — pre-tax means pre-income-tax, with HSA contributions through an employer being a notable exception that also skips FICA.

Line 5: Post-tax deductions and garnishments

Some deductions come out after tax: Roth 401(k) contributions, union dues, supplemental insurance premiums, and charitable giving through payroll. Court-ordered garnishments — for child support, tax levies or debts — also come from this side. These do not reduce your tax bill, but they are part of the honest answer to "where did my paycheck go?"

A complete worked example

In this illustration the worker keeps about 71% of gross — but a meaningful slice of the "missing" money is not gone at all: $100 went into their own retirement account and $85 bought health coverage. This is why "net pay" and "money lost to taxes" are not the same conversation. Your own percentages will differ with your state, filing status, and benefit choices; the shape of the waterfall, however, is the same for nearly everyone.

Using gross-vs-net thinking in real decisions

• Budget from net, plan goals from gross. Bills are paid from take-home pay, but rules of thumb like "save 15% for retirement" are usually expressed in gross terms.
• Estimate a raise realistically. A $3,000 raise does not add $3,000 to your bank account — after FICA and marginal income tax, expect roughly $2,000–$2,300 across the year. Our Raise Calculator gives the gross figure; apply your stub's effective deduction rate to it.
• Check your W-4 yearly. A new job, a second job in the household, or a change in dependents can leave you badly over- or under-withheld. Big refunds feel nice but mean you lent the government money interest-free all year.
• Read one stub closely, once. Verify your rate, hours, and each deduction. Payroll errors are not rare, and they are much easier to fix this quarter than next year.

Try it: get your gross numbers from the Salary to Hourly Calculator or the Hourly to Salary Calculator, then apply your own net ratio from your latest stub.

The four common pay schedules in the US

A pay period is the stretch of work each paycheck covers, and the pay schedule is the rhythm those periods repeat on. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, biweekly is the most common schedule in the private sector, followed by weekly, semimonthly, and monthly. They sound similar but behave quite differently:

The trap hiding in that table: biweekly is not the same as semimonthly, even though both are casually called "twice a month." Biweekly means every two weeks — 26 checks a year, landing on the same weekday. Semimonthly means twice per calendar month — 24 checks on fixed dates, which can fall on any weekday. A semimonthly check is bigger ($2,166.67 vs $2,000 in the example) precisely because there are fewer of them. If you switch jobs from one schedule to the other without noticing, your budget math will be off by about 8% — a classic source of "this job pays less than I thought" confusion that is really just calendar arithmetic.

The two three-paycheck months

Because 26 biweekly checks do not divide evenly into 12 months, biweekly workers receive three paychecks in two months of most years. If you are paid every other Friday, two months a year will contain three Fridays that are paydays. Monthly bills, however, are still monthly. Workers who budget as if each month brought exactly two checks get to treat those two extra checks as built-in bonuses — ideal for debt payoff, a savings boost, annual insurance premiums, or holiday spending planned ten months early. Workers who unknowingly spend them as "normal" months often feel mysteriously short in the following two-check months. The fix is simply knowing your payday calendar: list all 26 paydays at the start of the year and mark the two three-check months in advance.

Budgeting on each schedule

Biweekly: the cleanest method is the "two-check budget." Cover all monthly obligations — rent, utilities, loan payments, groceries, subscriptions — with two checks' worth of income, and pre-assign the third checks in three-paycheck months to savings or debt. If your rent is due on the 1st but your paydays drift across the month (biweekly paydays do drift relative to calendar dates), build a one-month buffer in your checking account so due dates stop mattering.

Semimonthly: the easiest schedule to budget on, because each half of the month looks identical. Many people split bills by half: the 1st-of-month check handles rent and big fixed bills, the 15th handles the rest plus savings. The quirk to know: a semimonthly period covering a month with 31 days (or February) pays the same amount — your salary does not change — so hourly equivalents of your pay vary slightly period to period.

Monthly: one large check demands the most discipline. Pay every bill on payday, move savings out immediately, and divide what remains by the number of weeks to give yourself a weekly spending allowance — otherwise the third week of the month gets lean. Weekly: small, frequent checks suit people who budget week to week, but monthly bills must be pre-funded by setting aside a slice of each check (one quarter of rent from each of four checks, for instance).

Pay periods and overtime: a detail worth knowing

Overtime under the FLSA is calculated by the workweek, no matter how long the pay period is. If you are paid monthly and work 50 hours in week one and 35 in each of the next three weeks, those 10 overtime hours are still owed at time-and-a-half in the monthly check — the employer cannot average them away across the period. See How Overtime Pay Works for the full rules, and verify with your stub that busy weeks were paid at the premium even in a long pay period.

Which schedule is "best"?

None changes your annual pay — $52,000 is $52,000 on every row of the table. What changes is cash-flow comfort. Biweekly pairs well with how people naturally budget and quietly gifts you two surplus checks a year. Semimonthly is the most predictable for monthly bills. Weekly suits tight cash flow and hourly work with variable hours. Monthly demands — and rewards — the strongest system. Employees rarely get to choose, but you can absolutely choose your budgeting method to match the schedule you have. And when comparing a new job offer, convert everything to annual first (our Hourly to Salary Calculator and Salary to Hourly Calculator do this), then separately ask how the pay schedule will feel month to month.

Try it: see your own pay in weekly, biweekly, monthly and annual terms with the Salary to Hourly Calculator.

Step 1: Know your market rate before anything else

A raise request anchored in data sounds completely different from one anchored in need — and managers can approve data. Research what your role pays in your area using the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (free, and broken down by occupation and metro area), plus salary ranges posted on job listings for comparable roles — many states now require ranges in postings, which makes this research far easier than it used to be. Note the median and the range, and where you sit in it. Also translate your current pay into hourly terms with our Salary to Hourly Calculator: comparing "$58,000" against postings quoted hourly is impossible until both are in the same unit.

Step 2: Build your evidence file

Managers approve raises for value delivered and scope grown, not for time served or personal expenses. Start a running document — today, not the week before your review — and record: projects you completed and their measurable results (revenue gained, costs cut, errors reduced, hours saved); responsibilities you have absorbed beyond your job description; skills, certifications or systems you have learned; praise from clients or colleagues (save the actual emails); and any ways your role has quietly become a bigger job. Numbers beat adjectives: "took over scheduling for a 14-person team and cut overtime costs 11%" persuades in a way "I work really hard" cannot.

Step 3: Decide your number — and your floor

Pick a specific target, not a vague hope. Typical merit raises run about 3–5%; correcting a below-market salary or reflecting a genuinely expanded role can justify 10–20%; a formal promotion usually carries a similar range. Use the Raise Calculator to see your target in annual, per-paycheck and hourly terms, and to test how a counter-offer would compare. Also decide your floor: the outcome below which you will seriously consider other options. You will rarely say the floor out loud — but knowing it keeps you calm and prevents you from accepting (or rejecting) something in the heat of the moment.

Step 4: Time it well

Timing rarely decides the answer, but bad timing can veto a good case. Good moments: after a visible win or completed project; during annual review and budget-planning season (often a few months before reviews, when budgets are actually set — ask your manager when that is); when your scope has clearly grown; or when you have market evidence that your pay lags. Poor moments: right after a mistake or a rough quarter for the company, during layoffs or a hiring freeze, or at your manager's most stressful hour of the week. Also respect lead time: in many organizations a raise needs approvals above your manager, so asking early in the cycle beats asking the day before decisions lock.

Step 5: Have the conversation

Ask for a scheduled meeting rather than ambushing anyone, and keep the framing collaborative: you want to talk about your compensation relative to your role and the market. A simple structure works:

1. Open with commitment: "I like it here and want to keep growing with this team."
2. Present the evidence: two or three of your strongest, most measurable contributions, and how your role has expanded.
3. Bring the market data: "For this role in our area, the range is roughly X to Y, and I'm currently at Z."
4. State the specific ask: "I'd like to move to $__, which reflects both the market and the scope I've taken on."
5. Then stop talking. Silence after the ask feels long and is completely normal. Let your manager respond.

Keep personal finances out of it — rent increases and new expenses are sympathetic, but they are not a business case, and every employee has them. One clean case, delivered once, beats five emotional appeals.

Step 6: Handle the possible answers

"Yes": thank them, confirm the amount and the effective date, and get it in writing (an email summary is fine). "Yes, but less": weigh it against your target and floor; you can ask what would close the gap — a mid-year review, a title change, a bonus, extra PTO, training budget, or a schedule improvement — since compensation is a package, not a single number. "Not now": the most informative answer if you mine it. Ask, "What specifically would I need to demonstrate, and by when, for this to be a yes?" Agree on measurable goals and a firm revisit date, write them down, and send a follow-up email summarizing them. A "no" with a dated, specific path is a plan; a vague "we'll see" is not — treat the difference seriously.

Step 7: Follow up like a professional

Whatever the outcome, send a brief thank-you email the same day summarizing what was discussed and agreed. Then do the follow-through: deliver on the goals you discussed, keep your evidence file updated, and revisit at the agreed date. If the revisit produces another vague no while your market data says you are well underpaid, that is valuable information about the ceiling at your current employer — and the same evidence file, market research and number sense transfer directly to interviewing elsewhere, where the largest raises in most careers actually happen.

Prepare your number: model your target raise — and any counter-offer — with the Raise Calculator before the meeting, not after.

SalaryCalc is a free resource website built for one audience: US workers who want to understand their own pay. Job offers arrive quoted in different units, paychecks shrink mysteriously between the offer letter and the bank deposit, and words like "biweekly," "exempt," and "time-and-a-half" carry precise meanings that nobody explains at orientation. We built this site to close that gap with two kinds of tools: fast, transparent calculators, and patient, plain-English guides.

What you will find here

• Four calculators — salary to hourly, hourly to salary, raise, and overtime pay — that show every assumption (hours per week, weeks per year) as an input you control, and present results in a full breakdown table rather than a single magic number.
• Five in-depth guides covering overtime law, salary vs. hourly trade-offs, the gross-to-net paycheck waterfall, pay-period schedules, and a step-by-step approach to negotiating a raise. Each guide is original, written for this site, and includes worked examples with real arithmetic.

How we calculate

Our math uses standard US conventions: a 2,080-hour full-time year (40 hours × 52 weeks) unless you change it, 26 biweekly periods, 12 monthly periods, and the FLSA's time-and-a-half rule after 40 hours in a workweek. Figures in guides cite the frameworks they come from — the Fair Labor Standards Act, US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and federal payroll tax rates — and worked examples are labeled as examples. Where state law differs from federal law, we say so rather than pretend one answer fits all fifty states.

What SalaryCalc is not

We are not accountants, lawyers, or your payroll department. Every calculator here produces gross-pay estimates — before income tax, FICA, and benefit deductions — and every page carries a disclaimer saying so. Estimates are a starting point for understanding and comparing; decisions about tax withholding, wage claims, or job offers deserve advice from a qualified professional or your state labor agency. We would rather be plainly limited than falsely precise.

Why the site is free

SalaryCalc is supported by advertising, which lets us keep every calculator and guide free for everyone, with no accounts and no paywalls. Our Privacy Policy explains exactly how advertising cookies work on this site and how you can control them.

Get in touch

Found a figure that looks wrong, a rule that changed, or a calculator you wish existed? We genuinely want to hear it — corrections from readers who check their own pay stubs are how this site stays accurate. Reach us through the Contact page.

The fastest way to reach us is email: hello@salarycalc-x2q.pages.dev. Use the form below and it will open your email app with your message addressed and ready to send — nothing is stored on this website.

Before you write

• Spotted an error? Tell us which page, which figure, and what your source or pay stub shows. Page name + number + source gets fixed fastest.
• A calculation question about your own pay? We can explain how a formula works, but we cannot review personal pay stubs or give tax or legal advice about an individual situation — your employer's payroll team, your state labor department, or a tax professional can.
• A calculator or guide suggestion? Tell us the question you were trying to answer. The best tools on this site started as exactly that kind of message.

This Privacy Policy explains what information SalaryCalc ("we," "the site") collects when you visit https://salarycalc-x2q.pages.dev/, how it is used, and the choices you have. The short version: our calculators run entirely in your browser, we have no user accounts, and we never see, store or transmit the pay figures you enter. The longer version follows, including how advertising cookies work.

Information you enter into calculators

All calculations on this site are performed locally, in your own browser, by the page itself. The salary, wage, hours and raise figures you type are not sent to us or to any server, are not saved in cookies or web storage by this site, and disappear when you close the page. We could not look at your numbers even if we wanted to — the site is built so that we never receive them.

Information collected automatically

Like most websites, our hosting provider may record basic technical information in server logs when your browser requests a page — such as your IP address, browser type, referring page, and the date and time of the request. We use this information in aggregate to keep the site working, understand which pages are useful, and protect the site from abuse. We do not operate user accounts and do not build profiles of individual visitors.

Cookies and advertising

This site displays advertising served by Google AdSense, and this section explains what that means for cookies:

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to this website or other websites.
• Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to this site and/or other sites on the Internet.
• You may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google's Ads Settings. Alternatively, you can opt out of many third-party vendors' use of cookies for personalized advertising at www.aboutads.info/choices.
• Advertising partners may also use cookies and similar technologies to measure ad performance and prevent fraud. We do not control cookies set by third-party advertisers; their handling of data is governed by their own privacy policies, including Google's Privacy Policy.

Most browsers also let you block or delete cookies entirely through their settings. The calculators and guides on this site work whether or not you accept cookies.

Analytics

We may use privacy-respecting, aggregate analytics to count page views and understand which content readers find useful. We do not sell personal information — and, as explained above, the site is designed to collect very little of it in the first place.

Links to other websites

Our guides link to external resources such as the US Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of external sites; their own policies apply when you visit them.

Children's privacy

SalaryCalc is written for working adults and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Your state privacy rights

Residents of states with comprehensive privacy laws (such as California under the CCPA/CPRA) have rights to know, delete, and opt out of the sale of personal information. We do not sell personal information. If you believe we hold personal information about you and wish to exercise a right, contact us at the address below and we will respond as required by applicable law.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the site or the law changes. The "Last updated" date at the top will change when we do, and the current version will always be posted on this page.

Contact about privacy

Questions about this policy can be sent to hello@salarycalc-x2q.pages.dev or through our Contact page.