Tip Pool Calculator

A shared tip pool only feels fair if the split is exact and everyone can see how their own number was reached. This calculator divides a pool by hours worked or by allocated points and shows each person's share — with the leftover from rounding assigned deterministically rather than quietly dropped. Tip-pooling rules — who must be included, whether managers or owners can share, mandatory service charges — differ by country and even by state or city; this tool does the arithmetic only, not that legal test.

The formula, in the open

• Each person's weight = their hours worked, or their allocated points — whichever basis you choose. Everyone uses the same basis.
• Exact share = the pool × (their weight ÷ total weight). This is rarely a whole number of paise or cents.
• Rounded share = each exact share rounded DOWN first, so no one's share is inflated by rounding.
• The remainder left after rounding everyone down — always smaller than the number of people splitting the pool — is handed out one smallest-unit at a time to whoever's rounded-down share was closest to rounding up, in the order they were entered if there's a tie. The pool always reconciles exactly: nothing is lost, and nothing is invented.

A worked example

A ₹1,000 pool split evenly by hours among three staff who each worked 8 hours: each person's exact share is 1,000 ÷ 3 = ₹333.33. Rounded down, that's ₹333 each — ₹999 total, ₹1 short. That last rupee goes to the first person on the list, so the pool splits as Asha ₹334, Ravi ₹333, Deepa ₹333 — ₹1,000 exactly.

What moves the number

Switching the basis from hours to points changes every share at once, since it changes what "weight" means — points are useful when a flat per-shift or per-role weighting fits your team better than clock hours. Adding or removing a staff member re-splits the whole pool, and an uneven split (one person working far more hours than the rest) concentrates more of the pool — and more of any single-unit remainder — on that person.

Try it

Enter your own pool and staff below. The defaults are the worked example — replace them with yours.