Shift Pay Calculator: Night Differential, Overtime & Weekend Premiums
Other pay calculators ask how many hours you work — on a rotating schedule, who knows? This one already does: pick your rotation, set one day you worked, and your real hours for the next 12 months are counted for you. Then add your rate and premiums below.
Why a shift pay calculator needs your schedule, not a guess
The weak point of every generic paycheck calculator is the very first question: "hours per week?" Rotating shift workers don't have a number — they have a pattern. A 2-2-3 (Panama) crew works 36 hours one week and 48 the next. A DuPont crew swings between a 72-hour monster week and a full week off. Averages hide exactly the thing that decides your overtime and your night hours.
This calculator works the other way around. It walks your actual rotation day by day for the next 365 days, counts which shifts are nights, which start on a Saturday or Sunday, and which weeks cross your overtime threshold — then prices each piece with the rules you give it. Change your pattern or crew and every number updates instantly.
Night shift differential: flat amount vs. percentage
Employers quote night differentials two ways, and mixing them up skews a yearly estimate badly:
- Flat add-on — "+$2.50 per hour on nights." Common in manufacturing, warehousing, and dispatch. Every night hour pays base + $2.50 regardless of your rate.
- Percentage of base — "10% night differential." Common in healthcare. A $32/hr nurse earns $3.20 extra per night hour; a raise automatically raises the differential too.
The calculator accepts either form — type the number and switch the unit between $/hr and % of rate. Night hours come from your own rotation: if you're on the night crew of a Pitman, that's roughly half the year priced at the higher rate, which is why the differential matters far more than it looks.
Overtime on rotating schedules
On paper a 2-2-3 "averages 42 hours a week," but payroll doesn't pay averages — it pays workweeks. With a standard 40-hour threshold, the long week produces about 8 hours of overtime and the short week produces none. Two details decide the real number:
- Your workweek boundary. A workweek starting Sunday slices your rotation differently than one starting Monday, and the OT total legitimately changes. Set it to match your employer's payroll calendar.
- The premium, not the multiple. Overtime hours are already paid once at base rate inside your scheduled hours, so the calculator adds only the extra 0.5× (or whatever multiplier you set) on top — no double counting.
Special regimes — FLSA 7(k) for fire/police, 8/80 in hospitals, union or state daily-OT rules — are deliberately out of scope; if you're under one, treat the OT line as a floor, not a promise.
Weekend premiums, priced from your actual weekends
A weekend premium is easy to state and annoying to estimate, because how many Saturdays and Sundays you actually work depends entirely on the rotation. The calculator counts your real weekend shifts across the year — for a 2-2-3 that's roughly half of all weekends — and multiplies by the hourly premium you enter. If your site doesn't pay one, leave it blank.
Why your biweekly paycheck keeps changing
Most US shift workers are paid every two weeks, and on an alternating 36/48 rotation the gross swings noticeably between checks even though nothing is wrong. The / 2 weeks avg tile gives you the yearly average per pay period — your actual checks will breathe around it, with night-heavy or OT-heavy periods coming in higher. If a check lands far from the average with no schedule change, that's your cue to read the stub line by line.
What this calculator deliberately does not do
Everything here is gross, before tax. No income tax, no social contributions, no retirement deductions — those depend on your country, state, and personal situation, and a wrong "net" number is worse than none. It also skips holiday premiums (which holidays count is employer-specific) and per-shift flat bonuses. What you get is the honest arithmetic of your rotation: hours × rate + the premiums you told it about, over the next 12 real months.
Want the schedule itself — every work day and day off on your phone's calendar? The full 12-month calendar and .ics export is one tap away, and your setup carries over automatically.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate shift differential pay?
Multiply your differential by the hours it applies to, then add that on top of base pay. If the differential is a flat amount (say $2.50 per night hour), night pay = night hours × (base rate + $2.50). If it is a percentage (say 10%), each night hour pays base rate × 1.10. This calculator supports both forms — enter the number and pick $/hr or % of rate.
What is a typical night shift differential?
There is no legal standard — it is set by your employer or union contract. Job postings commonly quote either a flat add-on (for example $1–$5 per hour) or a percentage of base rate (often somewhere around 5–15%). Hospitals tend to quote percentages, plants and warehouses often quote flat amounts. Always use the number from your own offer letter or contract.
How is overtime calculated on a 2-2-3 or other rotating schedule?
Most 12-hour rotations alternate a 36-hour short week with a 48-hour long week. Under a standard 40-hour weekly threshold you would earn overtime only in the long week — about 8 OT hours — and none in the short week. Where your employer starts the workweek (Sunday vs Monday, etc.) changes which shifts land in which week, which is why this calculator lets you set both the threshold and the workweek start day.
Does this calculator show take-home (after-tax) pay?
No, and that is deliberate. Income tax, social contributions, and deductions differ by country, state, and personal situation, so any single formula would be wrong for most people. This tool estimates gross pay — the number your hourly rate and premiums actually produce — which you can compare directly against the gross line on your pay stub.
What if my shift includes an unpaid meal break?
Enter the unpaid minutes per shift and the calculator deducts them from every worked shift before doing any math. A 12-hour shift with a 30-minute unpaid lunch is paid as 11.5 hours — over a full year of rotation that difference is far too big to ignore.
My night shift starts Friday and ends Saturday — does it count as weekend hours?
This calculator assigns all of a shift’s hours to the calendar date the shift starts on. A shift starting Friday night counts as Friday (no weekend premium); one starting Saturday or Sunday counts as weekend hours. Payroll systems sometimes split hours at midnight instead, so treat the weekend and night numbers as close estimates.