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Inputs that matter
Gross annual pay or hourly rate plus work weeks/hours; for take-home estimates, filing status, 2025/2026 tax year, optional state/local effective rate, and employee 401(k) percentage
Output to expect
Gross annual/monthly/biweekly/weekly equivalents and a simplified federal, payroll, optional state/local, 401(k), and net-pay breakdown
How it works
Exact pay-frequency arithmetic plus selected-year federal brackets/standard deduction, employee Social Security and Medicare rules, Additional Medicare Tax, and a user-supplied state/local effective rate
  • Zero is preserved as zero and blank, negative, or non-finite pay is rejected rather than replaced with an example value.
  • This is not payroll withholding or a tax return; verify benefits, pre-tax eligibility, credits, other income, local rules, and paycheck timing with current official or payroll sources.

Choose your path

Built around the job you need to finish

Convert gross pay into a transparent take-home estimate across pay frequencies without hiding federal/payroll-tax assumptions or confusing an estimate with withholding or a return.

Job-offer comparer

Compare two gross offers on the same pay and tax basis.

Set salary, frequency, filing assumptions, and pre-tax deductions; inspect gross, taxes, and net pay.

Can compare like-for-like scenarios and identify every omitted benefit, tax, and deduction.

Hourly or variable-pay worker

Normalize pay into annual and per-paycheck amounts.

Choose the correct frequency, verify annualization, and review per-period versus annual totals.

Does not confuse pay periods, work hours, or overtime assumptions.

Mobile paycheck planner

Estimate cash flow from a phone with current-year sources visible.

Load an example, adjust one assumption, inspect take-home breakdown and scope, then export/copy.

Completes the task with named 44px controls and treats the result as planning rather than payroll advice.

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Reference & details

How it works

Pay-frequency normalization

Annual salary is divided into 12 monthly, 26 biweekly, 52 weekly, 260 workday, and 2,080-hour equivalents. Hourly mode multiplies the entered rate by work hours and work weeks, with separately stated overtime assumptions.

Annual hourly pay = (Regular weekly pay + Overtime weekly pay) × Work weeks

Selected-year federal and payroll estimate

Federal regular income tax uses the selected year's standard deduction and progressive brackets. Employee Social Security is capped at that year's wage base; Medicare applies to wages and the additional 0.9% is included above the filing-status threshold.

Net = Gross − Federal − Social Security − Medicare − State/local estimate − 401(k)

Explicit omissions

The state/local field is a user-entered effective percentage of gross pay, not a state tax table. The result is not paycheck withholding or a tax return and omits credits, itemized deductions, benefits, other income, and special wage treatment.

State/local estimate = Gross pay × User-entered effective rate

Updated: August 2026

Example Scenarios

A single filer compares gross and simplified federal/payroll take-home with no state/local estimate or 401(k) contribution.

Gross Salary: $75,000Tax year: 2026Filing status: Single

Modeled federal tax: $7,670; employee payroll taxes: $5,737.50; net: $61,592.50 before omitted items

Evaluating two job offers after accounting for different tax implications and benefit deductions.

Offer A: $85,000Offer B: $72,000Benefits Value B: $8,000

Compare total compensation, not just gross salary

A worker enters hourly rate, regular hours, work weeks, weekly overtime, and overtime multiplier to avoid treating a 52-week salary equivalent as guaranteed paid time.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Using marginal tax rate for entire salary

Progressive tax brackets apply incrementally. Earning $75K doesn't mean all income is taxed at 22%. Use effective rate or bracket-by-bracket calculation.

Treating the take-home estimate as a pay stub or return

Actual withholding and liability depend on W-4 choices, other income, benefits, credits, deductions, local rules, and employer payroll. Use the estimate for like-for-like planning and verify consequential decisions.

FAQ

Gross salary is pay before deductions. The displayed net is a planning estimate after the modeled federal tax, employee payroll taxes, optional state/local effective rate, and 401(k) amount; it is not an actual paycheck or filing result.

Effective tax rate is total tax paid divided by gross income. With progressive brackets, it is lower than your top marginal rate because only income above each threshold is taxed at the higher rate.

Divide gross annual salary by 12 for monthly gross or by 26 for a biweekly equivalent. Semimonthly pay has 24 periods and is not the same as biweekly pay; verify the employer's schedule.

Federal regular income tax and employee Social Security/Medicare are modeled separately. You may enter your own state/local effective percentage of gross pay; the tool intentionally does not claim a single flat rate for progressive state and local systems.

The calculator models only a standard employee 401(k) deferral, capped at the selected year's regular limit. Eligibility, catch-up contributions, employer contributions, health premiums, HSA/FSA, commuter benefits, and their tax treatment are outside this estimate.

About Salary Calculator

Compare gross salary and hourly offers on the same time basis, then build a transparent US take-home planning estimate. Choose 2025 or 2026, filing status, an optional state/local effective rate, and a 401(k) percentage; blank or invalid pay is never replaced with an example behind the scenes.