Overtime Calculator: Compute Pay, Hours and Total Labor Cost

How the Overtime Calculator Works

You punch in two numbers: what you pay per hour and how many hours someone worked that week. That's it. The calculator does the rest - figures out which hours are regular, which ones cross into overtime territory, and what each bucket costs you.

We default to the 40-hour weekly threshold because that's what the FLSA says. But maybe you're in California and need to track daily overtime after 8 hours. Or you've got a union contract with double time on Sundays. Change the threshold, pick a different multiplier, and the math adjusts automatically.

Where it gets interesting is the team projection. One employee doing 5 hours of overtime doesn't feel like a big deal - until you multiply it by 12 people across 52 weeks. That's the number most managers have never actually calculated. And it's usually the number that changes how they build schedules.

Who Actually Uses This?

We built this after watching restaurant owners eyeball overtime costs on napkins. Literally. A guy running three taco shops in Phoenix told us he had no idea he was spending $8,400 a month on overtime until his accountant flagged it at year-end. By then, the money was gone.

So the short answer: anyone who pays hourly workers and doesn't have a payroll system that makes overtime costs obvious. That includes shift supervisors at retail stores trying to stay under budget, warehouse managers juggling seasonal spikes, nursing directors covering empty slots with whoever answers the phone. If you've ever approved an extra shift without knowing what it'll cost - this is for you.

The Overtime Rules You're Probably Already Following (and a Few You Might Not Be)

Here's the federal version: any non-exempt employee who works more than 40 hours in a workweek gets time and a half. That's the FLSA, and it hasn't changed since 1938 - though the salary thresholds for who counts as "exempt" get updated every few years.

What trips people up is the state layer. California has daily overtime - 1.5x after 8 hours in a single day, 2x after 12, regardless of what the weekly total looks like. Colorado kicks in daily OT after 12 hours. Alaska does it after 8. And then there's Nevada, which only requires daily overtime if you're paying below 1.5 times the state minimum wage.

If you run crews in multiple states, one payroll policy doesn't cut it. A shift that's perfectly legal in Texas might generate overtime liability in California before lunch.

Worth noting: the most expensive overtime mistake isn't paying it - it's classifying someone as exempt who shouldn't be. One misclassified employee can trigger back-pay claims going back two years (three if it's willful). If the job involves following instructions rather than making independent decisions, it's probably non-exempt.

Cutting Overtime Without Cutting People

Not all overtime is bad. A Friday rush at a restaurant, a product launch at a warehouse, flu season at a hospital - these are real spikes that need real hours. The problem is structural overtime: the same people, same shifts, same 45-hour weeks, month after month.

When we dig into the numbers with teams that have chronic overtime, it's almost never because there's too much work. It's because the work lands unevenly. Three people carry the load while two others coast. Or the schedule gets published late, so the only ones who can pick up gaps are the ones already working full weeks.

A few things that actually move the needle:

1. Pull 90 days of overtime data and sort by employee. You'll usually find that 20% of the team generates 80% of the overtime hours. That's not a staffing problem - it's a distribution problem.
2. Publish schedules earlier. When people have time to swap shifts, they do. When you post Thursday's schedule on Wednesday night, the only option is overtime.
3. Cross-train aggressively. If only two people can work the espresso bar, and one calls out, the other one's getting overtime. If four people can do it, you have options.
4. Set budget caps per location per week. When a store manager knows they have 320 regular hours to work with, they plan differently than when the limit is vague.

Overtime Rules by State

Most states just follow the federal rule: overtime after 40 hours per week, end of story. But a handful have added daily overtime thresholds, double time requirements, or industry-specific rules that make payroll more complicated.

Here's what you need to know for the states that do things differently:

California - the strictest state. Daily OT kicks in after 8 hours. Work past 12 in a single day, and it's double time. The 7th consecutive day in a workweek also triggers overtime (1.5x for the first 8 hours, 2x after that). Most employers outside California don't realize how different the math is here.

Alaska - daily overtime after 8 hours, same as California but without the double time wrinkle. Weekly threshold is still 40.

Colorado - daily OT after 12 hours (not 8). So a 10-hour shift is fine. A 13-hour shift triggers 1 hour of overtime pay regardless of the weekly total.

Nevada - daily overtime after 8 hours, but only if the employee's regular rate is less than 1.5 times the state minimum wage. Pay above that threshold and the daily rule doesn't apply.

Oregon - manufacturing workers get daily OT after 10 hours. Everyone else follows the standard 40-hour weekly rule.

New York, Texas, Washington - follow federal rules only. No daily overtime, no double time. After 40 weekly hours, it's time and a half.

These rules shift. States update thresholds, add exemptions, and change minimum wage floors regularly. If you're making payroll decisions based on what the law said two years ago, you might already be out of compliance.

Overtime Pay Calculation Examples

Restaurant: Line Cook Working 50 Hours

Hourly rate: $18. Weekly hours: 50. The first 40 hours pay $720 at the regular rate. The remaining 10 hours are time and a half: $18 × 1.5 = $27/hr × 10 = $270 in overtime pay. Total weekly pay: $990. If you have 6 cooks doing similar hours, that's $1,620 per week in overtime - nearly $84,000 a year.

Warehouse: Night Shift with Double Time

A California warehouse worker earns $22/hr. They work a 14-hour shift. The first 8 hours are regular pay ($176). Hours 9-12 are overtime at 1.5x ($132). Hours 13-14 are double time at 2.0x ($88). One shift total: $396. Without understanding the daily overtime rules, the employer might calculate only weekly overtime and underpay - a compliance risk.

Healthcare: Nurse Covering Extra Shifts

An RN earning $35/hr picks up an extra 12-hour shift, bringing their weekly total to 48 hours. Regular pay: 40 × $35 = $1,400. Overtime: 8 × $52.50 = $420. The overtime cost of one nurse covering one extra shift: $420. Multiply by the number of nurses doing the same every week, and the annual overtime budget adds up fast.

Overtime for Different Pay Types

Hourly Employees

The most straightforward overtime pay rate calculation: regular hourly rate × overtime multiplier × overtime hours. This is what our overtime calculator handles directly.

Salaried Non-Exempt Employees

First convert the salary to an hourly rate: annual salary ÷ 52 weeks ÷ 40 hours. Then apply the overtime multiplier to hours beyond 40. Example: $41,600 salary = $20/hr. Ten overtime hours at 1.5x = $300 extra that week.

Tipped Employees

Overtime for tipped workers is calculated on the full minimum wage - not the lower tipped wage. If a server's regular rate (including tips) works out to $14/hr, their overtime rate is $21/hr. Many employers miscalculate this, using the $2.13 tipped minimum wage as the base - that's a violation.

Commission-Based Employees

For employees paid partly or fully by commission, the regular rate is calculated by dividing total earnings (including commissions) by total hours worked. Overtime is then 0.5× that rate for each overtime hour (since the straight-time portion is already included in the commission).

Need to convert shift times between formats? Try our military time conversion tool for quick 12-hour to 24-hour conversions.