Overtime calculator

An overtime multiplier expresses how much more an extra hour costs compared with a regular one. A multiplier of 1.5 means each overtime hour is paid at 150% of the base rate; 1.25 means 125%; 2 means double time. Across industries you will commonly see patterns such as 1.25x for the first block of extra hours, 1.5x beyond that, and 2x for exceptional cases like public holidays — but the exact figures are not universal.

The multiplier that applies to your team depends on your country and your collective agreement, and sometimes on the employment contract itself. Some agreements let you compensate overtime with paid time off instead of money, or set different multipliers for weekday and weekend overtime. Treat this calculator as a costing tool: enter the multiplier your own rules define, and always confirm the legal minimums with your agreement or an advisor.

Work performed during night windows is often paid above the normal rate, either as a percentage uplift on the base rate or as a fixed supplement per hour. This calculator models the percentage approach: the night multiplier is applied to the full hour, so a multiplier of 1.25 values each night hour at 125% of the base rate. If your rules express the premium as an uplift — for example “plus 25%” — enter it as 1.25.

What counts as a night hour, and how large the premium must be, again depends on your country and collective agreement. Some frameworks also limit how many night hours an employee may work in a period or require health checks for permanent night workers, which affects how much night work you can schedule in the first place.

The healthiest way to budget overtime is to make it explicit instead of treating it as noise. Decide what share of total hours you are willing to pay at premium rates — many operators aim to keep it small — and cost it at the multiplied rate, not the base rate. Ten overtime hours at 1.5x cost the same as fifteen regular hours, so a budget that prices them at 1x will always undershoot.

Run the calculator with your realistic monthly pattern, then with a pessimistic one: what happens if absences double, or if a seasonal peak adds night shifts? The difference between those two totals is your overtime exposure. If it is uncomfortably large, the fix is usually structural — more cross-trained staff, better shift patterns or an earlier view of demand — rather than hoping the extra hours will not happen.

Overtime leakage is the slice of premium pay that nobody consciously approved: shifts that start a little early and end a little late, breaks that are skipped, swaps that push someone over their weekly threshold. Individually the amounts are small; across a team and a year they become a meaningful line on the P&L.

Accurate clock-in data closes that gap. When every worked minute is recorded against a schedule, you can see overtime forming during the week — not a month later on a payslip — and decide whether to approve it, redistribute hours or adjust the rota. ShiftCal computes overtime and night premiums from real clock-ins and exports them ready for payroll, so the number you budget is the number you pay.