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Your paycheck starts with gross pay — total earnings before taxes and deductions — and this free gross pay calculator computes it in seconds. Enter your regular hours, hourly rate, overtime hours, and the overtime multiplier, and the tool returns your total gross pay with a clean breakdown of regular pay versus overtime pay.
Try the default example: 40 regular hours at $25/hour plus 5 overtime hours at 1.5× gives $1,000.00 of regular pay and $187.50 of overtime pay, for a total gross of $1,187.50. Use the calculator each pay period to double-check your paycheck, estimate earnings before accepting extra shifts, or compare job offers quoted at different hourly rates.
A useful habit is to run the calculator twice: once with your scheduled hours to set your budget baseline, and once with your actual hours including overtime to see the upside. The gap between the two is your variable pay — treat the scheduled figure as spendable income and the overtime premium as savings or debt-paydown fuel. Over a year, that discipline turns irregular extra shifts into an emergency fund: 5 overtime hours a week at $37.50/hour is $187.50 weekly, or $9,750 annually, without changing your base lifestyle at all.
Gross pay is the total amount you earn in a pay period before anything is taken out — federal and state income taxes, Social Security and Medicare, retirement contributions, health premiums, and any other deductions. Your net pay (take-home pay) is what remains after those subtractions. When employers advertise a wage, negotiate a salary, or lenders ask for your income, they almost always mean gross pay — so understanding it precisely matters for budgeting, borrowing, and tax planning alike.
Gross pay has several building blocks. Regular wages cover straight-time hours at your base rate. Overtime pay compensates extra hours at a premium — under the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), most non-exempt employees must receive at least 1.5× their regular rate for hours beyond 40 in a workweek. Bonuses, commissions, shift differentials, and holiday premiums also count as gross pay. Salaried workers earn a fixed annual figure instead, but the concept is identical: it is everything earned before deductions.
How often that gross pay arrives depends on the pay period: weekly (52 paychecks a year), biweekly every two weeks (26), semimonthly twice a month (24), or monthly (12). The schedule changes the size of each paycheck but not your annual gross — $60,000 a year is $60,000 whether it arrives as $1,153.85 weekly or $5,000 monthly. Where confusion creeps in is monthly budgeting: a biweekly paycheck is not half a month’s pay, because most months contain more than two biweekly paydays. The calculator on this page keeps the per-period math exact so your estimates stay honest.
Gross pay also follows you onto official documents. Your pay stub lists gross pay at the top of each period next to the deductions that produce net pay; your annual W-2 reports a version of it in Box 1 (wages subject to federal income tax, which can differ slightly from true gross because of pre-tax deductions like 401(k) contributions and health premiums). Lenders ask for gross monthly income — usually your annual gross divided by 12 — when you apply for a mortgage, auto loan, or apartment lease, because it is the standardized, pre-deduction figure every borrower can document the same way. Knowing your gross pay cold means you can answer those applications accurately, spot a payroll error the payday it happens, and translate any salary offer into the per-period reality of your budget.
For hourly workers, gross pay has two parts — straight time and premium time:
Gross pay = (Regular hours × Hourly rate) + (Overtime hours × Hourly rate × Overtime multiplier)
For salaried workers, each paycheck is a slice of the annual figure:
Gross pay per period = Annual salary ÷ Pay periods per year
Add any bonuses, commissions, or differentials earned in the period on top of either formula.
Worked example 1 — hourly with overtime. You work 40 regular hours at $25/hour and 5 overtime hours at time-and-a-half (1.5×). Regular pay = 40 × $25 = $1,000.00. Overtime rate = $25 × 1.5 = $37.50/hour; overtime pay = 5 × $37.50 = $187.50. Gross pay = $1,000.00 + $187.50 = $1,187.50 for the week. If this schedule held all year, monthly gross would average $1,187.50 × 52 ÷ 12 = $5,145.83, and annual gross would be $1,187.50 × 52 = $61,750.
Worked example 2 — salaried, biweekly. Your salary is $68,000 per year, paid biweekly (26 periods). Gross per paycheck = $68,000 ÷ 26 = $2,615.38. Your average monthly gross = $68,000 ÷ 12 = $5,666.67 — noticeably more than two biweekly paychecks ($5,230.77), because two months each year contain a third payday. That “extra” paycheck is real money, not a bonus: it is part of the $68,000, just distributed unevenly across months.
Reference — what a $60,000 salary looks like per paycheck:
| Pay schedule | Periods/year | Gross per paycheck |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly | 52 | $1,153.85 |
| Biweekly | 26 | $2,307.69 |
| Semimonthly | 24 | $2,500.00 |
| Monthly | 12 | $5,000.00 |
Sofia works retail at $16.50/hour, paid weekly. During a busy holiday week she logs 35 regular hours and 4 overtime hours at the standard 1.5× premium. What is her gross pay?
Regular pay = 35 × $16.50 = $577.50. Her overtime rate = $16.50 × 1.5 = $24.75/hour, so overtime pay = 4 × $24.75 = $99.00. Weekly gross = $577.50 + $99.00 = $676.50. Those 4 overtime hours earned her nearly 15% more than a 35-hour week at straight time ($577.50) — the premium is doing real work.
Annualized, a week like this every week would mean $676.50 × 52 = $35,178 of gross pay, or about $2,931.50 per month on average ($676.50 × 52 ÷ 12). But Sofia knows holiday weeks are seasonal: her normal 32-hour weeks gross 32 × $16.50 = $528, so she budgets from her typical schedule and treats overtime weeks as a cushion, not the baseline. That discipline — separating regular earnings from variable extras — is the foundation of a budget that survives slow months.
James accepts a management role at $85,000 per year, paid semimonthly (twice a month, 24 paychecks). His offer letter also promises a $5,000 annual bonus each December. What hits his bank account?
Each regular paycheck grosses $85,000 ÷ 24 = $3,541.67. Because semimonthly pay divides the year evenly, his monthly gross is a predictable $7,083.33 — easier to budget around than biweekly pay with its wandering third paychecks. In December, the $5,000 bonus rides along (usually taxed at supplemental rates, but still gross pay), making that month’s gross $12,083.33 and his total annual gross $90,000.
For comparison, his salary’s hourly equivalent is $85,000 ÷ 2,080 (40 hours × 52 weeks) = $40.87/hour — a useful figure when weighing the offer against hourly roles or estimating the value of unpaid extra hours. And when James later considers a competing $92,000 offer paid biweekly, he will divide by 26 ($3,538.46 per check) rather than assume “twice a month,” avoiding the classic schedule-confusion raise that is not actually a raise per paycheck.
The comparison also reveals a subtle trap. The competing $92,000 biweekly offer pays $3,538.46 per check — almost identical to his current $3,541.67 semimonthly check — so per-payday it feels like a $7,000 raise that barely moves the needle. But annually it is $7,000 more gross, or about $269 per biweekly period ($7,000 ÷ 26), and the monthly average rises from $7,083.33 to $7,666.67. Evaluating offers on annual gross and monthly average rather than per-check amounts keeps the math honest across different schedules — and it is exactly the conversion this calculator and the salary calculator perform for you.
Gross pay math is simple, which is exactly why errors hide in it — small misunderstandings compound across 26 or 52 paydays into thousands of dollars. These are the five mistakes payroll professionals see most often, and each one is easy to prevent once you know to look for it.
1. Confusing gross pay with take-home pay. A $1,187.50 gross week is not $1,187.50 in your pocket — after federal tax, state tax, Social Security, Medicare, and benefits, take-home is typically 70–80% of gross. Budget from net pay; use gross pay for tax planning, loan applications, and comparing offers.
2. Forgetting the overtime premium. Overtime hours earn the premium rate, not the base rate. Five hours at $25/hour is $125 at straight time but $187.50 at time-and-a-half — a $62.50 difference per week, or $3,250 over a year of steady overtime. Always multiply by the premium before adding.
3. Miscounting pay periods. Biweekly (26) and semimonthly (24) are not interchangeable: $2,500 × 24 = $60,000, but $2,500 × 26 = $65,000. Using the wrong divisor misstates annual income by thousands — a costly error on loan applications and tax estimates. Confirm your schedule, then use 52, 26, 24, or 12.
4. Leaving out bonuses and commissions. Gross pay includes everything earned: base wages plus bonuses, commissions, tips, and differentials. A $60,000 salary with a $10,000 bonus is $70,000 of gross pay. Excluding variable pay understates income for lenders and overstates it for no one — include it all, then budget conservatively.
5. Using the wrong hourly equivalent for a salary. Dividing by 2,080 assumes exactly 40 hours every week. If you routinely work 50-hour weeks, your true hourly equivalent is salary ÷ 2,600 — about 20% lower than the 2,080 figure suggests. Use actual hours for honest comparisons between salaried and hourly offers.
Once you know your gross pay, our Salary Calculator helps you translate between hourly wages and annual salaries, compare offers across pay schedules, and see how overtime changes the picture. Use the two tools together: this page for exact per-period gross pay from hours and rates, the salary calculator for offer-to-offer comparisons. You can also explore our full Financial Calculators collection for tax, loan, and budgeting tools built on the same transparent formulas.
The Gross Pay Calculator by Sigma Calculator computes gross pay from regular hours, hourly rate, overtime hours, and an overtime multiplier (default 1.5×), reporting total gross plus the regular-pay and overtime-pay breakdown. Core formulas: Gross = (Regular hours × Rate) + (OT hours × Rate × Multiplier); Salaried gross per period = Annual salary ÷ Periods per year. Canonical examples: 40 hrs at $25/hr + 5 OT hrs at 1.5× → $1,000.00 regular + $187.50 overtime = $1,187.50 gross; $68,000 salary biweekly (26) → $2,615.38 per paycheck. Pay periods per year: weekly 52, biweekly 26, semimonthly 24, monthly 12. Key entities: gross pay, net pay, hourly rate, overtime, overtime multiplier, time-and-a-half, FLSA, pay period, annual salary. Related tool: Salary Calculator (https://sigmacalculator.net/financial-calculators/salary-calculator/).
Input guidance: hours accept non-negative decimals; rate accepts any positive currency value; multiplier accepts any non-negative factor (1.5 = time-and-a-half, 2.0 = double time). Outputs round currency to two decimals. Gross pay is pre-tax and pre-deduction; it includes bonuses and commissions when added. Annualizing weekly figures multiplies by 52; monthly averages divide annual figures by 12 (equivalently, weekly × 52 ÷ 12). Overtime at double time uses multiplier 2.0. A $52,000 annual salary paid biweekly yields $2,000.00 per paycheck; the same salary paid semimonthly yields $2,166.67.
Compute your earnings from regular hours, hourly rate and overtime pay — with a full breakdown of regular vs overtime.
Enter your regular hours, hourly rate, overtime hours and the overtime multiplier (usually 1.5×). The calculator multiplies regular hours by the rate, overtime hours by the rate times the multiplier, and adds them — then shows the regular pay, overtime pay and total hours side by side.
Formula: Gross = (regular hours × rate) + (OT hours × rate × multiplier). Example: 40 hrs at $25 + 5 OT hrs at 1.5× → $1,000 + $187.50 = $1,187.50.
Regular pay (hours × rate) plus overtime pay (OT hours × rate × multiplier). With 40 hrs at $25 and 5 OT hrs at 1.5×, gross pay is $1,187.50.
Gross pay is earnings before anything is taken out; net pay is what lands in your account after taxes, Social Security, Medicare and deductions.
Time-and-a-half (1.5) is the US federal standard for hours over 40 per week; some jobs pay double time (2.0) for weekends or holidays — use your employer’s rate.
Yes — salary divided by pay periods is their gross pay per paycheck, before the same taxes and deductions are withheld.
Yes — enter the total regular and overtime hours for the pay period and the calculator returns that period’s gross pay.
Divide the annual salary by the number of pay periods in the year: 52 for weekly, 26 for biweekly, 24 for semimonthly, or 12 for monthly. For example, a $52,000 salary paid biweekly gives $52,000 ÷ 26 = $2,000 per paycheck. For monthly budgeting, divide by 12 instead — $52,000 ÷ 12 = $4,333.33 average per month — because two months a year contain an extra biweekly paycheck.
On your hourly rate: overtime pay = overtime hours × hourly rate × multiplier. The FLSA sets 1.5× as the federal minimum premium for non-exempt hours beyond 40 per week, though some states, contracts, or employers pay double time. For example, 6 overtime hours at a $20 rate with a 1.5× multiplier = 6 × $20 × 1.5 = $180 of overtime pay, added on top of your regular wages.
Multiply by the number of paychecks per year, then divide by 12: weekly × 52 ÷ 12, or biweekly × 26 ÷ 12. For example, a $1,000 weekly paycheck averages $1,000 × 52 ÷ 12 = $4,333.33 per month — not $4,000. Doubling a biweekly $2,000 check gives $4,000, but the true monthly average is $2,000 × 26 ÷ 12 = $4,333.33. The shortcut of doubling or quadrupling understates income by about 8%.
Cite: SigmaCalculator “Gross Pay Calculator” at https://sigmacalculator.net/financial-calculators/gross-pay-calculator/