Free tool
Tip pool calculator
Put in the pool, pick how you split it, and see what each person is owed. Three methods: by hours worked, evenly, or by shares. The odd cents are handled properly, so the payouts add back to the pool exactly rather than drifting a few cents off. Free, no signup, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
1. What is in the pool?
2. How is it split?
3. Who is in it?
The split
- Marco$231.11
- Elena$173.33
- Sam$115.56
The payouts add back to the pool exactly. Odd cents that cannot divide evenly go to whoever was rounded down hardest, so nothing is invented and nothing goes missing.
Which method should you use
None of the three is the correct one. They fit different rooms, and the useful thing is picking one and applying it the same way every shift.
By hours suits most front of house pools and is the easiest to explain. Evenly suits small teams working identical shifts, where weighting by hours adds argument without adding fairness. By shares is how kitchens usually get included, because a line cook and a server are not meant to draw the same amount from the same pool.
Why the leftover cents matter
Split $520 three ways by hours and you get repeating decimals. Round each payout on its own and the total no longer matches the pool: you have either created money that was never there or quietly kept a few cents.
Neither is a disaster on one shift. Over a year of shifts it is a pattern, and the person it shorted is the one who notices. This calculator floors each payout, then distributes the remaining cents to whoever lost the most in the rounding, so the arithmetic reconciles every time.
What a calculator cannot do
It works out one shift. It does not remember what you did last Friday, and a tip dispute is almost never about a whole month. It is about one night, and the useful answer is a record showing the pool, the rule, and what each person drew from it.
That is the difference between this page and the tip pooling software guide, which covers keeping the record and exporting it to payroll. The Tips module is the product itself.
Tip pool splits, answered
How do you calculate a tip pool split by hours?+
Add up the hours everyone in the pool worked that shift, then give each person the same proportion of the pool as their share of those hours. Somebody who worked 8 of 18 total hours receives 8/18 of the pool. It is the most common method for front of house because it is the easiest to explain to a new hire.
What is the difference between splitting by hours and by shares?+
Hours divides purely on time on the clock. Shares gives each role a weight you set, so a server and a line cook can draw different amounts from the same shift. Shares is the usual way kitchens are included in a pool, because equal time does not always mean an equal claim on tips.
What happens to the cents that will not divide evenly?+
This calculator floors every payout to the cent, then hands the leftover cents out one at a time to whoever was rounded down hardest. The payouts always add back to the pool exactly. That matters more than it sounds: a split that quietly invents or loses money is the kind of thing that surfaces months later in a dispute.
Does this handle tip credit or tipped minimum wage?+
No, and be careful with any tool that claims to. Tip credit, tipped minimum wage, and who is legally allowed in a pool vary by state and change over time. This calculator applies the split rule you choose. Whether that rule is lawful where you operate is a question for your payroll provider or an employment attorney.
Is the calculator free?+
Yes, free and with no signup. Nothing you type is sent anywhere: the whole calculation runs in your browser. If you want the same split applied every shift with a payout record per person, that is the Tips module in Smooth Ops at $25 a month per location.
Same split, every shift, on the record
The Tips module keeps the payout record per person per shift. $25 a month per location.
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