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Pay Raise Calculator
Find out what a raise really means for your paycheck. Enter your current pay, the size of the raise, and inflation, then press Calculate to see your new pay across every pay basis.
Written by TopicDrill Editorial Team·Updated June 2026
Annual pay if the raise repeats each year
Annual pay
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How the pay raise calculator works
A raise can be quoted as a percentage or as a flat dollar amount, and on any pay basis from hourly to annual. This tool accepts whichever form your offer uses, computes your new pay, and converts both the old and new figures into a yearly salary so you can compare them on equal footing. It also reports the exact percentage increase whenever you enter a flat amount.
Because raises are easy to overstate, the tool also subtracts inflation. The real raise line tells you whether your new pay genuinely buys more than before, and the chart projects your salary forward assuming the same raise repeats and compounds each year.
A quick example
Say you earn $65,000 a year and receive a five percent raise while inflation runs at three percent. Your new salary is $68,250, an increase of $3,250. After accounting for rising prices, though, the real value of your pay only grew by about two percent, so roughly $1,300 of that increase simply kept pace with inflation rather than making you better off.
Things to keep in mind
The result is your gross pay before taxes and deductions, so your take-home increase will be smaller than the headline number. For current inflation figures to plug in, see the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI data. To see how the raise changes your actual paycheck after withholding, follow up with our take-home pay calculator.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate the percentage of a pay raise?
Subtract your old pay from your new pay to get the increase, divide that increase by your old pay, and multiply by one hundred. For example, going from fifty thousand to fifty two thousand five hundred is an increase of two thousand five hundred, which divided by fifty thousand and multiplied by one hundred is a five percent raise.
What is a real, or inflation-adjusted, raise?
Your nominal raise is the headline percentage your employer gives you. The real raise subtracts inflation to show how much your purchasing power actually grew. If you receive a four percent raise in a year when prices rise three percent, your real raise is only about one percent, which is what really matters for your standard of living.
How does a raise convert between hourly and annual pay?
This calculator scales every pay basis to a yearly figure first. It assumes forty hours a week for fifty two weeks, so two thousand eighty hours a year for hourly pay, fifty two weekly periods, twenty six biweekly periods, and twelve monthly periods. A raise applied to one basis therefore shows up consistently across all of them.
Why does the chart project several years of pay?
The projection assumes the same percentage raise repeats each year and compounds, so you can see how even a modest annual increase builds over time. It is an illustration rather than a guarantee, since future raises depend on performance, the labor market and your employer's budget.
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