Career calculator
Raise Calculator
Enter your current salary and a raise percentage or new salary to see the annual increase and how much more lands in each paycheck.
New annual salary
—
How to calculate a pay raise
To calculate a pay raise, multiply your current annual salary by the raise percentage expressed as a decimal. Add that amount to your current salary to find your new annual salary.
Pay raise formula
Example: What is a 5% raise on $60,000?
A 5% raise on a $60,000 annual salary is $3,000. That increases the annual salary to $63,000.
The $3,000 annual increase is approximately $250 per month, $115 per biweekly paycheck, or $58 per week before taxes.
Frequently asked questions
How much is a 3% raise?
Multiply your current salary by 0.03. For example, a 3% raise on $50,000 is $1,500, resulting in a new annual salary of $51,500.
How much is a 5% raise?
Multiply your current salary by 0.05. A 5% raise on $60,000, for example, adds $3,000 per year.
Does this calculator show pay before or after taxes?
Calquo calculates gross pay before taxes, deductions, benefits, and other withholdings.
How the raise calculator works
The calculator has two modes. If you know the percentage you have been offered, enter your current annual salary and the raise percentage, and it works out the dollar amount and your new salary. If you know the new salary instead, switch to the second mode, enter both figures, and it works backward to find the percentage increase.
Either way you get the same set of results: your new annual salary, the raise as a percentage to two decimal places, the annual increase in dollars, and that increase spread over a month, a biweekly paycheck, and a week. Dollar amounts are rounded to the nearest whole dollar. Everything is gross pay, before federal and state income tax, Social Security and Medicare, and any benefit deductions.
Pay raise formulas
Suppose you earn $65,000 and your manager offers a 4 percent raise. The raise amount is 65,000 × 0.04 = $2,600, so the new salary is $67,600. Spread across the year, that is 2,600 ÷ 12 = $216.67 more per month, 2,600 ÷ 26 = $100 more per biweekly paycheck, and 2,600 ÷ 52 = $50 more per week. The calculator shows the monthly figure as $217 because it rounds to whole dollars.
Working in the other direction, if you are moving from $65,000 to $72,000, the increase is $7,000 and the raise percentage is 7,000 ÷ 65,000 × 100 = 10.77 percent.
Why the per-paycheck figures look the way they do
The biweekly figure divides the annual increase by 26 because there are 26 two-week pay periods in a year. If your employer pays twice a month on fixed dates instead, you receive 24 checks, so your per-check increase will be slightly larger than the biweekly number shown here. Divide the annual increase by 24 to get it.
A raise also increases the amount withheld from each check, so your take-home pay rises by less than the gross figures. Under the US federal system, tax brackets are marginal: only the dollars that fall into a higher bracket are taxed at the higher rate. A raise cannot reduce your after-tax pay by pushing you into a new bracket, although it can occasionally affect eligibility for income-tested benefits or credits.
Judging whether a raise is a good one
A percentage on its own says little. Annual merit increases at many US employers have typically landed in the 3 to 5 percent range, while promotions and counteroffers often run well above that. The most useful comparison is against inflation: if prices rose 4 percent over the year and you received 3 percent, your purchasing power fell even though your salary went up.
Before a review conversation, it helps to run a few scenarios and translate each one into the monthly figure, which is easier to relate to rent, car payments, or savings goals. It also helps to know what you are comparing against.
- The current inflation rate and your own cost-of-living changes
- Market pay for your role, from salary surveys or job postings
- Any change in duties since your last adjustment
- Whether the offer includes a bonus, equity, or extra paid time off that the calculator does not capture
Limitations to keep in mind
The calculator assumes the new salary applies for a full year. If your raise takes effect partway through the year, you only receive the proportional share of the annual increase this year. A $2,600 raise effective July 1 adds about $1,300 to that calendar year's earnings.
It also only looks at base salary. Bonuses, overtime, commissions, 401(k) matching, and health insurance contributions are left out, and some of those scale with salary. Hourly workers can still use the tool by converting their rate to an annual figure first, then entering the old and new annual amounts.
Frequently asked questions
How much is a 3 percent raise on $50,000?
A 3 percent raise on $50,000 is $1,500 per year, for a new salary of $51,500. That works out to $125 more per month, about $58 more per biweekly paycheck, and about $29 more per week before taxes.
How do I calculate my raise percentage from two salaries?
Subtract your old salary from your new salary, divide by the old salary, and multiply by 100. Going from $65,000 to $72,000 is (72,000 − 65,000) ÷ 65,000 × 100 = 10.77 percent.
Is a 5 percent raise good?
A 5 percent raise is above the typical 3 to 4 percent merit increase at most US employers. Whether it is good for you depends on inflation, what comparable roles pay, and whether your responsibilities have grown.
Does the calculator show take-home pay?
No. All results are gross pay before income tax, Social Security, Medicare, and benefit deductions. Your after-tax increase will be smaller, typically by 20 to 35 percent depending on your state and bracket.
What if my raise starts in the middle of the year?
The annual increase shown is for a full 12 months. Multiply it by the fraction of the year remaining to see the effect on this year's pay. A raise effective October 1 adds only a quarter of the annual amount this year.
How much is a $1 per hour raise per year?
For a full-time job at 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, a $1 per hour raise adds $2,080 per year. You can enter your old and new annual amounts in the calculator to see the percentage and the per-paycheck breakdown.