Tip-out calculator

For workers, not managers: what you owe, what you walked with, and your real hourly.

How tip-out works (the 60-second version)

Tip-out is the share of your earnings you pass to the support team — bussers, barbacks, food runners, hosts, sometimes the bar. Restaurants calculate it one of two ways:

• Percent of sales (1–4% typical). You owe a cut of what you sold, regardless of what you were tipped. Simple for the house — but if a $200 table stiffs you, you still owe the tip-out on that $200. On a bad night, sales-based tip-out can literally cost you money.
• Percent of tips (10–30% typical). You share what you actually received. Widely considered the fairer method for servers: a bad tip night automatically means a smaller tip-out.

Either way, the number that matters at the end of the night is walked-with: cash + card tips − tip-out. Divide by hours and you have your real hourly — the number to compare jobs and shifts with. More on that in how to track your tips.

Is your tip-out normal?

Check it both ways with the calculator above. Typical US ranges: 1–4% of sales or 10–30% of tips. Consistently above both? Ask how it's calculated and who receives it — and know that under US federal law, managers and owners may not take from a tip pool, and tips are legally the property of employees.

One more reason to track it: tip-outs reduce the tip income you report, and clean per-shift records are the paper trail for the up-to-$25,000 tip deduction (2025–2028).

TipJar: 10-second logging · no account · no ads · ★ 5.0 on the App Store