How PayGuess calculates your earnings

Hourly gross pay

Gross pay is before taxes and payroll deductions. With overtime after 40 hours at 1.5×, we add regular pay for the first 40 hours and overtime pay for the remaining hours. Example: $40/hour and 53.5 hours = $1,600 regular pay + $810 overtime = $2,410 gross.

Enter decimal hours: 37.5 means 37 hours 30 minutes; 37.30 means 37 hours 18 minutes. Select the rule that applies to your job. This tool does not determine overtime eligibility or support every state, daily, union or contractual overtime rule.

Multiple jobs

Each job is calculated separately, then combined. The tool treats the entered jobs as separate payrolls; it does not determine whether employment relationships require hours to be combined for overtime.

Salary and period conversions

Weekly salary is annual salary ÷ 52. Biweekly is weekly × 2. Average monthly is annual pace ÷ 12. For hourly work, annual pace repeats the current week 52 times; it is not a prediction of future hours or annual income. The headline rounds employee gross pay to whole dollars; take-home projections show cents.

Completed client work

Fixed-price earnings = rate per job × completed jobs. Hourly client earnings = rate × scheduled hours minus cancelled hours. Entered materials, gas and other costs are subtracted. Effective hourly earnings use entered work and unpaid time. Costs are not automatically classified as tax-deductible expenses.

Take-home projection

The previous paycheck's taxes ÷ its gross pay gives the observed withholding percentage. We apply that percentage to the projected paycheck gross, then subtract the expected other deductions you enter. This is not an IRS withholding calculation or a prediction of final tax liability. A changed tax election, bonus, overtime amount, retirement deduction or benefit can alter the actual deposit.

Use a reference paycheck from the same job and pay frequency. For varying pay periods, enter the full-period gross override. Without an override, biweekly repeats this week twice; monthly and twice-monthly use annualized averages. Confirm every amount before relying on the illustration.

Freelancer reserve

The basic federal illustration uses 2026 IRS ordinary-income brackets and the standard deduction. It computes ordinary self-employment tax on 92.35% of annual profit when net earnings reach $400, caps the Social Security portion using your own W-2 Social Security wages, and deducts half that regular self-employment tax from income. Income tax attributed to freelance work is the difference between the modeled income tax with and without freelance profit. The total divided by annual profit gives the allocation percentage applied to positive entered earnings. State/local taxes, credits, QBI and other special deductions, Additional Medicare Tax, AMT, and prior payments are excluded. It is an illustration, not final tax liability or a quarterly payment amount. Do not use this simplified model for a spouse’s separate freelance business, dependents, nonresidents, or age-related standard deductions. Alternatively, the custom reserve is your chosen percentage of positive earnings after entered costs. It is not a recommended rate or a calculation of taxes owed. A loss produces no predicted tax refund.

Saved weeks and comparisons

Only explicitly saved weeks count; a saved $0 counts, and missed weeks do not. Compare the same pay type: employee gross and freelancer earnings after costs are different measures. Shift scenarios do not change the base earnings or saved week; edit the calculator to save actual earnings.