A tip out calculator turns one pool number and a roster into per-person cents, and there are only three honest ways to do it: even, by hours worked, or weighted by hours and role. Even split is pool divided by headcount. By hours is pool divided by total hours, then multiplied by each person's hours. Weighted multiplies each person's hours by a role weight first, then splits on that total. Everything else is a variation on those three.
Split tonight's pool in ten seconds
Enter the pool, add the crew, pick a mode. Your roster saves in your browser and the result prints for the back of house.
The three formulas
even: share = pool / headcount
by hours: share = pool x (my_hours / total_hours)
weighted: share = pool x (my_hours x my_weight) / sum(hours x weight)
Role weights are a house decision, not a published standard. Nobody outside your bar can tell you whether a shift lead is worth 1.2 or 1.0, so the calculator lets you set them and shows the arithmetic instead of hiding a default.
Worked example: a $420 pool, four people, 80 hours
| Person | Hours | Weight | Even split | By hours | Weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ana | 32 | 1.2 | $105.00 | $168.00 | $190.19 |
| Ben | 24 | 1.0 | $105.00 | $126.00 | $118.87 |
| Cy | 16 | 1.0 | $105.00 | $84.00 | $79.24 |
| Dee | 8 | 0.8 | $105.00 | $42.00 | $31.70 |
| Total | 80 | $420.00 | $420.00 | $420.00 |
Arithmetic from the three formulas above. By hours: 420 / 80 = $5.25 per hour. Weighted: weighted hours are 38.4, 24, 16 and 6.4 for a total of 84.8, giving $4.95283 per weighted hour. Cents cannot split evenly, so the splitter floors every share and then hands the leftover cents out one each, largest fractional remainder first. Here the floors leave 3 cents over, which go to Ana, Dee and Ben, and the column lands on exactly $420.00. Any splitter that does not reconcile like this quietly loses or invents money.
Why the same pool produces a 6x spread
Dee gets $105 under an even split and $31.70 under the weighted one. That is not a bug in either method, it is the policy question stated in cash. An even split says the room earned the tips together. An hours split says presence on the floor earned them. A weighted split says some roles carry more of the service the customer tipped for. Pick one, write it on the wall, and stop relitigating it every Friday.
The one thing worth checking before you pick: short shifts get hit hardest by hours-based modes, and openers who do an hour of prep with no customers in the building still accrue hours. If that feels wrong, the fix is usually to count on-floor hours rather than to switch modes.
The federal rules the math sits inside
The calculator does arithmetic. It does not know your state, and tip law is not arithmetic. The parts that come from the US Department of Labor:
- A tipped employee under the FLSA is one who customarily and regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips (Fact Sheet #15).
- The federal minimum cash wage for a tipped worker is $2.13 an hour, the federal minimum wage is $7.25, and the maximum tip credit an employer can claim is the difference, $5.12 an hour.
- Employers may not keep any portion of employees' tips for any purpose, directly or through a tip pool. Managers and supervisors may not receive tips from a tip pool, though they are not barred from contributing to a mandatory one (DOL tips page).
- An employer that pays the full minimum wage and takes no tip credit may let employees who are not tipped employees, such as cooks and dishwashers, join the pool. An employer that takes a tip credit may not.
- An employer that collects tips to run a mandatory pool generally must fully redistribute them, and tip pooling itself sits at 29 CFR 531.54.
State law can be stricter than all of that. This is a math tool and a summary of published federal rules, not legal or payroll advice; check your state labor department before you set policy.
Related reading
FAQ
How do you calculate a barista tip out? Divide the pool by total hours worked to get a per-hour rate, then multiply each person's hours by that rate. For an even split, divide the pool by headcount instead.
Can a manager take a share of the tip pool? No. The Department of Labor states that employers, managers and supervisors may not keep tips or receive them from a tip pool, though managers and supervisors are not prohibited from contributing to a mandatory pool.
Can kitchen staff be in the tip pool? Only if the employer pays the full minimum wage and takes no tip credit. An employer claiming a tip credit is limited to a pool of employees who customarily and regularly receive tips.
Sources: the $30 a month tipped employee threshold, the $2.13 minimum cash wage, the $7.25 federal minimum wage and the $5.12 maximum tip credit are stated in US Department of Labor Fact Sheet #15: Tipped Employees Under the FLSA. The prohibition on employers, managers and supervisors keeping tips, the treatment of non-tipped employees in a pool where no tip credit is taken, the full redistribution requirement and the 29 CFR 531.54 citation come from the DOL Wage and Hour Division tips page. Both fetched and cached 2026-08-18. Every dollar figure in the split table is arithmetic from the pool and roster shown.
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