Pay Raise Calculator

What this pay raise calculator does

This pay raise calculator shows what a raise is worth in every paycheck. Enter your current pay, hourly or per week, two weeks, half-month, month or year, then the raise as a percentage or as an amount of money. You get the new pay and the difference for all six pay periods side by side, so a 3% raise on $55,000 reads as $56,650 a year, $137.50 more a month and 79 cents more an hour.

It also works backward, as a raise percentage calculator: type your old and new pay and it tells you the percentage, or the size of a cut if the new figure is lower. Two optional extras answer the follow-up questions: what the raise is worth after inflation, and where your pay ends up if the same raise repeats every year. All figures are gross, before tax.

How to use the calculator

1. Choose a mode: Raise by %, Raise by amount, or Find the raise %. The quick raise buttons (2%, 3%, 4%, 5% and 10%) jump straight to a percentage.
2. Enter your current pay and choose how it is paid in the Paid menu. 55000, 55,000, $55k and 18.50/hr all work. Pick a currency; INR uses lakh grouping, such as ₹6,60,000.
3. Set the hours per week. It links hourly pay to the other periods and starts at 40, with 52 paid weeks a year.
4. Enter the raise. A percentage (negative for a pay cut), an amount for the same period as your pay, or the new pay itself in reverse mode.
5. Optional: add the inflation rate for the year, and switch on Repeat this raise every year to see a table for up to 40 years.
6. Read the results. The large tile is your new pay for the period you entered, followed by the raise percentage, the extra per year and a table with every period. Copy summary and Download CSV save the lot.

The three raise formulas

raise by percent:   new pay = current pay × (1 + raise ÷ 100)
raise by amount:    new pay = current pay + raise
raise percentage:   raise % = (new pay − current pay) ÷ current pay × 100

The worked example loaded on the page is a 3% raise on a $55,000 salary. 55,000 × 1.03 = $56,650, an extra $1,650 a year. Spread across the year on a 40-hour week, it looks like this:

Period	Current	New	Change
Hourly	$26.44	$27.24	+$0.79
Weekly	$1,057.69	$1,089.42	+$31.73
Biweekly	$2,115.38	$2,178.85	+$63.46
Semi-monthly	$2,291.67	$2,360.42	+$68.75
Monthly	$4,583.33	$4,720.83	+$137.50
Annual	$55,000	$56,650	+$1,650

The change column is calculated before rounding, so it can look a cent off from the two rounded figures beside it: $27.24 − $26.44 looks like 80 cents, but the exact difference is $0.7933.

A raise in money works the same way. $1.50 more an hour on $18.00 makes $19.50, which is (19.50 − 18) ÷ 18 = 8.33%, worth $3,120 a year at 40 hours a week. In reverse mode, going from $52,000 to $55,640 is 3,640 ÷ 52,000 = 7%.

How the periods are converted

Every period goes through one yearly figure with 52 paid weeks: hourly × hours per week × 52, weekly × 52, biweekly × 26, semi-monthly × 24 and monthly × 12. A percentage raise is therefore the same percentage in every period. Only the money changes.

That is also why the hours setting matters for a raise given per hour. A 60-cent raise is $1,248 a year on 40 hours but $624 on 20. To compare an hourly job with a salaried one in more detail, the hourly to salary calculator and the salary to hourly calculator handle unpaid time off and overtime.

A raise every year: why the percentages compound

When a raise repeats, each new percentage is applied to the pay you already have, including last year's raise. The effect is small at first and grows over time:

Year	Annual pay at 3% a year	Above today
Today	$50,000	–
1	$51,500	3%
2	$53,045	6.09%
3	$54,636.35	9.27%
4	$56,275.44	12.55%
5	$57,963.70	15.93%

After five raises of 3% the pay is 15.93% higher, not 15%, and the extra earned over those five years adds up to $23,420.49. The same rule explains why two 5% raises make 1.05 × 1.05 = 10.25%, not 10%.

A raise given as a fixed amount does the opposite. $1.50 an hour every year adds the same $3,120 each time, so the percentage shrinks: 8.33% in the first year, 7.69% in the second, and the pay is 41.67% higher after five years. The calculator uses compounding for percentage raises and adds the same money each year for amount raises, and says which one it is using.

Does the raise beat inflation?

A raise only increases what you can buy if it is larger than the rise in prices. The real raise is:

real raise = (1 + raise) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1

A 4% raise in a year with 3% inflation is 1.04 ÷ 1.03 − 1 = 0.97% more at today's prices. A 3% raise with 3.5% inflation is −0.48%: the paycheck is bigger, but it buys a little less than before. Simply subtracting the two rates gives almost the same answer for small numbers, which is why people often say "4 minus 3", but the division is the exact version.

The calculator does not include an inflation rate of its own, because the right figure depends on your country and the period. Use the official consumer price index figure from your national statistics office.

Raise, pay rise or hike: one calculation

The word changes with the country, and the math does not. In the U.S. it is a raise, in the UK and Australia a pay rise, and in India a hike or increment, often quoted on annual CTC (cost to company). A 10% hike on ₹6,00,000 a year is ₹60,000, making ₹6,60,000, and the monthly figure moves from ₹50,000 to ₹55,000. Before comparing offers, check whether a percentage applies to the full CTC or only to fixed pay, as the two can produce different amounts.

Tips and common mistakes

• Check what the percentage is applied to. A raise on base pay does not include bonuses, overtime or allowances unless your employer says so.
• Expect the hourly rate to be rounded. A 3.5% raise on $18.75 is exactly $19.40625. Paid as $19.41 an hour, the year comes to $40,372.80 instead of $40,365.00.
• Do not confuse points with percent. Moving from a 3% raise to a 5% raise is 2 percentage points more, but a 66.67% bigger raise. The percentage calculator works through changes like this.
• Compare like with like. In reverse mode both pays must be for the same period, and both before tax.
• Count your hours. If you also work overtime, track it with the time card calculator and apply the new rate to those hours too.

Privacy and limitations

The calculator runs in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded, and your figures are remembered for this browser tab only, then cleared when the tab closes.

All amounts are gross. The tool does not estimate income tax, payroll contributions, benefits or take-home pay, and it assumes 52 paid weeks a year with the same hours every week. Projections assume the same raise every year and are illustrations, not forecasts. For decisions about tax, pensions or contracts, check with your employer or a qualified adviser.