For HR and People Operations
Compensation education that doesn't collect employee data
Help your employees understand what their gross salary actually means per paycheck. Use the same calculators in onboarding emails, benefits conversations, and compensation reviews — knowing that no data ever leaves an employee's browser.
Built for the way HR works
No employee data sent anywhere
Every calculation runs in the employee browser. No login, no email, no tracking. We literally cannot see what your employees are computing.
Built on IRS Publication 15-T
Federal withholding math follows the same methodology used in IRS Pub. 15-T (Employer's Tax Guide) and Pub. 505. State tax rates are user-provided and current as of the weekly Data Source Worker run.
Updated weekly from official US sources
IRS, BLS, SSA, DOL, BEA, and Federal Reserve are monitored on a 7-day cron. When the IRS publishes a new Rev. Proc., our calculators reflect it within one build cycle.
Free, with no vendor partnership
SalaryLabs is an independent project funded by affiliate partnerships disclosed in our editorial policy. We don't accept payment to skew results, and we don't gate any calculator behind a paywall.
Calculators for HR conversations
These are the five calculators most often used in compensation reviews, offer letters, benefits education, and onboarding. Each one is free, embeddable, and respects the same no-data-collected policy.
Take-Home Pay Calculator
For: Show employees what their gross salary actually means per paycheck
Federal income tax, FICA (Social Security + Medicare), state tax, and 401(k) pre-tax contributions. Supports single, married filing jointly, and head of household.
Open calculator →Salary Comparison
For: Help employees compare two job offers or salary bands
Side-by-side annual, monthly, and weekly comparison. Useful for internal equity reviews and offer negotiations.
Open calculator →Job Offer Comparison
For: For offer letters with signing bonus, equity, and benefits
Total compensation comparison including equity vesting, 401(k) match, healthcare contributions, and one-time payments.
Open calculator →Overtime Calculator
For: For non-exempt employees working variable hours
FLSA-compliant 1.5x and double-time calculations. Handles the standard 40-hour workweek and 7th consecutive day rules.
Open calculator →Retirement Stack Calculator
For: Show 401(k) + HSA + IRA contribution impact in one view
Walks through 2026 IRS contribution limits, employer match scenarios, and current-year federal tax savings from pre-tax contributions.
Open calculator →Looking for the full list? All 16 calculatorscover salary, taxes, overtime, retirement, and benefits.
Compliance & audit trail
For HR and payroll teams, every calculation links to a primary US government source. The math is deterministic, the sources are public, and the formulas are documented.
Use cases for HR teams
1. New-hire onboarding
Send the take-home pay calculator link to new hires before their first paycheck. Realistic expectations reduce “sticker shock” when the first net deposit is meaningfully smaller than the gross number on the offer letter.
2. Compensation transparency
Share a salary range with an embedded calculator so employees can see how each band translates to net pay after federal, state, and FICA withholding. Useful for pay-band communication.
3. Offer letter math
When a candidate asks “what does $X actually look like in my state with my 401(k) contribution?” — paste the take-home pay URL with their inputs. The candidate sees monthly and per-paycheck numbers, no sales call required.
Embed in your HR portal or intranet
Every calculator can be dropped into your existing HRIS, intranet, or Sharepoint as a single iframe. No API key, no JavaScript SDK, no back-and-forth. The embed runs in a sandboxed iframe so it can't read or write to your host page.
See all 16 embed widgetsfor live previews and copy-paste iframe snippets.
Frequently asked questions
Is the calculator data sent to SalaryLabs?
No. Every calculation runs in the employee browser. The HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are loaded once from our CDN, and the math happens locally. We don't have analytics, form submission, or any code that transmits what an employee is computing. You can verify this by opening browser dev tools, going to the Network tab, and using the calculator — there will be no outbound requests during calculation.
Can we customize the calculator for our company benefits?
Not yet. The current embed shows generic IRS + state math, not company-specific health plan premiums or 401(k) match formulas. We're publishing an open-source roadmap for a company-specific variant that would let your HR portal pre-fill health plan premium, employer match, and other inputs. Until then, the best workaround is to send the calculator link to employees with a one-line note ("Your healthcare contribution is $X per paycheck — enter it under Healthcare Premium").
Is this HR advice or just a calculator?
This is an independent compensation education tool, not HR, legal, tax, or financial advice. The math is sourced from IRS, BLS, SSA, and DOL — but every employee's situation is different. We don't replace your benefits team, your CPA, or your payroll provider. We do help employees go into a benefits conversation with a realistic picture of net pay instead of being surprised on the first deposit.
How do we share with employees?
Three options: (1) Direct link — paste the calculator URL into your onboarding email, Slack, or intranet. (2) Embed — drop the iframe snippet into your HR portal. The embed runs in a sandboxed iframe, so it won't interfere with your existing site. (3) PDF export — employees can save a calculation as PDF for their records. We don't track that they did.
What is the data source?
IRS (federal brackets, Pub 15-T withholding), BLS (wage data, CPI), SSA (wage base, FICA rates), DOL (FLSA overtime rules), BEA (regional price parities), and Federal Reserve (interest rates for retirement rate-context). All sources are public, US government data, refreshed weekly. See our data freshness page for the latest check timestamp on each metric.
Get started
Most HR teams start with the take-home pay calculator for onboarding. The embed is a single iframe — drop it in your HR portal today.