You know the percentage
New pay = current pay × (1 + raise % ÷ 100)
A 4 % raise on $25.00 per hour is $25.00 × 1.04 = $26.00. Multiply by your hours to carry it through to a week, a month or a year — the percentage is the same in every one of them.
Pay Raise Calculator
Enter your pay and the raise — in percent or in money — and see the new figure for every pay period, the raise percentage, and what it is actually worth once inflation is taken out.
The two formulas behind a raise
Every pay raise question is one of these two, in one direction or the other.
You know the two pay figures
Raise % = (new pay − old pay) ÷ old pay × 100
Going from $60,000 to $62,400 a year is ($2,400 ÷ $60,000) × 100 = 4 %. Divide by the old pay, never by the new one — that is the mistake that turns a 4 % raise into 3.8 %.
Percent or money — pick the one you were given
Managers usually announce a percentage, offers usually name an amount. The calculator takes either and prints the other, so you can compare a “$2 an hour” offer with a “5 %” one without doing the conversion in your head.
What each raise percentage is worth
Based on a $60,000 salary and a $25.00 hourly rate at 40 hours a week. Your own numbers are in the calculator above.
| Raise | On a $60,000 salary | On $25.00 per hour | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New salary | More per year | More per month | New rate | More per hour | |
| 1 % | $60,600 | +$600 | +$50 | $25.25 | +$0.25 |
| 2 % | $61,200 | +$1,200 | +$100 | $25.50 | +$0.50 |
| 3 % | $61,800 | +$1,800 | +$150 | $25.75 | +$0.75 |
| 4 % | $62,400 | +$2,400 | +$200 | $26.00 | +$1.00 |
| 5 % | $63,000 | +$3,000 | +$250 | $26.25 | +$1.25 |
| 6 % | $63,600 | +$3,600 | +$300 | $26.50 | +$1.50 |
| 7 % | $64,200 | +$4,200 | +$350 | $26.75 | +$1.75 |
| 8 % | $64,800 | +$4,800 | +$400 | $27.00 | +$2.00 |
| 10 % | $66,000 | +$6,000 | +$500 | $27.50 | +$2.50 |
| 12 % | $67,200 | +$7,200 | +$600 | $28.00 | +$3.00 |
| 15 % | $69,000 | +$9,000 | +$750 | $28.75 | +$3.75 |
| 20 % | $72,000 | +$12,000 | +$1,000 | $30.00 | +$5.00 |
Figures are gross — before tax and deductions, which are the same percentages before and after a raise.
How to calculate your pay raise
Four inputs, no sign-up, and the result updates as you type.
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Enter your current pay and pick the period it belongs to — an hourly rate, a monthly salary or a yearly package all work.
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Set the raise. Drag the track for a percentage, or switch to an amount if you were offered extra money instead.
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Check the assumptions — currency, hours per week and the inflation rate you expect — so the hourly and yearly figures match your contract.
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Read the board. The new pay appears for every pay period, next to the difference and what the raise is worth after inflation.
How big is a normal raise?
There is no single right number, but pay raises cluster into four bands. The marker shows where the raise in the calculator sits.
| Kind of raise | Usual range | When it happens |
|---|---|---|
| Cost-of-living adjustment | 2 – 3 % | Applied across the whole company to keep pay level with prices. It is not a reward for performance and rarely beats inflation by much. |
| Annual merit raise | 3 – 5 % | The standard yearly review increase in most companies, funded from a merit budget of roughly the same size. |
| Promotion | 8 – 15 % | A new title and a new pay band. This is where the step is big enough to change the yearly figure noticeably. |
| Changing employer | 10 – 20 % | The market rate for moving. It is why people leave for a raise the current employer could not match internally. |
Ranges are typical for office and hourly roles in the US and Western Europe; regulated, unionised and public-sector pay follows its own scales.
A raise below inflation is a pay cut
Money buys less each year. Only the part of a raise above inflation is a real increase — the rest just keeps you where you were.
The arithmetic is short: real increase = (1 + raise) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1. A 3 % raise while prices rise 3 % leaves you exactly where you started; a 3 % raise against 5 % inflation is a 1.9 % pay cut in everything but the payslip. The calculator prints this line under every result, using the inflation rate you set — change it to your own country's figure rather than trusting a default.
| Raise | Real change at 3.0 % inflation | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 2 % | -1.0 % | Buying power falls |
| 3 % | 0.0 % | Standing still |
| 4 % | +1.0 % | A real increase |
| 5 % | +1.9 % | A real increase |
| 7 % | +3.9 % | A real increase |
| 10 % | +6.8 % | A real increase |
Who uses a pay raise calculator
Employees before a review
Turn “I would like more” into a number: what the percentage adds per paycheck, and what percentage the amount you want actually is.
Managers planning a budget
Price a raise across a team before promising it — per person, per month and per year, in the currency you report in.
HR and payroll
Convert an approved percentage into the exact hourly rate or salary that goes into payroll, for any pay frequency.
Freelancers raising rates
See what a new hourly rate does to a year of billable hours before you send the letter to your clients.
Pay decisions are easier with the hours in front of you
WebWork tracks time, attendance and productivity automatically, so every raise conversation starts from what actually happened.
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From the raise to the payroll line
A raise changes one number; payroll has to apply it to every hour worked from that date on. WebWork turns tracked hours into pay periods and rates you can hand to accounting — see how payroll time tracking connects hours to what people are paid.
Try WebWork freeThe hours behind the raise, tracked automatically
A calculator prices the raise. WebWork shows the work that justifies it.
Employee payroll tracker
Tracked hours turned into payroll-ready totals, with rates, overtime and payments built in.
See payroll trackingEmployee timesheet software
Timesheets that fill themselves from tracked time — with approvals, edits and payroll-ready exports.
See timesheet softwareWorkforce analytics software
Reports on hours, productivity and costs across teams and projects — the numbers behind every decision.
See workforce analyticsWork hours tracker
Every working hour recorded automatically — regular, overtime and idle time, per person and per day.
See work hours trackingPay raises — frequently asked questions
Multiply your current pay by 1 plus the raise as a decimal: a 5 % raise means current pay × 1.05. On $25.00 an hour that is $26.25 an hour; on a $60,000 salary it is $63,000 a year. The percentage stays identical whether you apply it to an hourly rate, a month or a year, so you can convert first and multiply after, or the other way round.
On a $60,000 salary, a 3 % raise is $1,800 more a year — about $150 a month, or $69 on a biweekly paycheck. On $25.00 an hour it adds $0.75 an hour, which is roughly $1,560 a year at 40 hours a week.
Subtract the old pay from the new pay, divide by the old pay and multiply by 100. Both figures must cover the same period — comparing a new monthly salary with an old yearly one is the most common error. The “Raise percentage” tab does it for you and shows the difference per hour, per month and per year alongside.
Annual merit raises usually land between 3 % and 5 %, cost-of-living adjustments around 2–3 %, promotions between 8 % and 15 %, and moving to another employer typically 10–20 %. A raise that only matches inflation keeps your pay level rather than improving it, so judge the offer against the inflation rate where you live, not against zero.
Ask for the number, not a feeling. Start from the market rate for your role and location, add what has changed in your responsibilities since the last review, and check what the percentage is worth per paycheck before you name it — a request that sounds large yearly can be modest per pay period, and vice versa. If your role has grown into a different job, the promotion band is the fairer reference than the merit band.
In buying power, yes. If prices rise 5 % and your pay rises 3 %, the same basket costs more than your extra pay covers: (1.03 ÷ 1.05) − 1 = −1.9 %. The payslip is bigger and the money buys less. That is why the calculator prints a real-value line under every result.
Multiply the extra per hour by your hours a week, then by 52. An extra $1.00 an hour at 40 hours a week is $2,080 a year. The calculator does this in both directions, so you can also enter a yearly salary and read the equivalent hourly rate.
No — every figure is gross, before tax and deductions. Income tax depends on your country, region, filing status and benefits, and a calculator that guessed at them would be wrong for most visitors. The useful part is that the percentage is the same before and after tax: a 5 % gross raise is close to a 5 % net raise unless it pushes you across a tax band.
They compound. Five yearly raises of 4 % do not add up to 20 % — they multiply out to 21.7 %, because each raise is applied to a salary that already grew. The “Raises over time” tab shows the year-by-year figures and, next to them, what they are worth in today's money once inflation is removed.
Yes. Pick “month” as your pay period and enter the monthly figure — the board converts it to hourly, weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly and yearly amounts using the hours a week you set. Monthly salaries are the norm in most of Europe and Latin America, and hourly rates in the US, so the tool treats both as first-class inputs.
Run each person's pay through the calculator and add the “more per year” figures — that total is what the raise costs the budget for a full year. If the raises start mid-year, multiply by the fraction of the year remaining. Employer costs on top of gross pay (social contributions, pension, insurance) scale with it, so the true cost is higher than the sum of the raises.
Yes — free, unlimited, and nothing to sign up for. It runs entirely in your browser, so the pay figures you type never leave your device.