Methodology
Overtime Pay Using Your Rule Calculator methodology
Educational only: Work and pay decision support, not tax, legal, financial or career advice.
Privacy: Calculations run locally; Wage101 does not receive your work or pay inputs.
Update policy: Reviewed when formulas or official dependencies change.
Scope: Market-neutral work and pay planning using your own assumptions.
1. Formulas and units
grossPay = regularPay + overtimePayWhere
- grossPay
- Gross pay under entered rule (currency units/period)Source: Calculated output
- overtimePay
- Overtime pay (currency units/period)Source: Calculated output
- regularPay
- Regular Pay (currency units/year)Source: Calculated output
overtimePay = tier1Pay + tier2PayWhere
- overtimePay
- Overtime pay (currency units/period)Source: Calculated output
- tier1Pay
- Tier1 Pay (currency units/year)Source: Calculated output
- tier2Pay
- Tier2 Pay (currency units/year)Source: Calculated output
overtimePremium = overtimePay − baseHourlyRate × (tier1Hours + tier2Hours)Where
- baseHourlyRate
- Base hourly rate (currency units/hour)Source: User assumption
- tier1Hours
- Tier 1 overtime hours (hours/period)Source: User assumption
- tier2Hours
- Tier 2 overtime hours (hours/period)Source: User assumption
- overtimePay
- Overtime pay (currency units/period)Source: Calculated output
- overtimePremium
- Overtime premium over straight time (currency units/period)Source: Calculated output
totalHours = regularHours + tier1Hours + tier2HoursWhere
- regularHours
- Regular hours (hours/period)Source: User assumption
- tier1Hours
- Tier 1 overtime hours (hours/period)Source: User assumption
- tier2Hours
- Tier 2 overtime hours (hours/period)Source: User assumption
- totalHours
- Total hours (hours/period)Source: Calculated output
averageHourlyRate = grossPay ÷ totalHoursWhere
- grossPay
- Gross pay under entered rule (currency units/period)Source: Calculated output
- totalHours
- Total hours (hours/period)Source: Calculated output
- averageHourlyRate
- Average hourly rate (currency units/hour)Source: Calculated output
Money inputs and outputs use the currency selected in the scenario without changing the canonical methodology. Pay, time, benefits and work-related costs use the units stated beside each input.
2. Worked example
Input assumptions
Calculate 40 regular hours, eight hours at 1.5 times and two hours at 2 times from a 25 base rate.
Calculation and outputs
Example
Calculate 40 regular hours, eight hours at 1.5 times and two hours at 2 times from a 25 base rate.
- Gross pay under entered rule
- 1,400.00 currency units
- Overtime pay
- 400.00 currency units
- Overtime premium over straight time
- 150.00 currency units
- Total hours
- 50
- Average hourly rate
- 28.00 currency units
Regular, overtime, premium and average-rate effects stay explicit.
Interpretation
Use the result only for your entered hours and multipliers.
3. Validation and boundary checks
- Total entered hours must be positive.
- Multipliers stay between 0 and 10.
- Any active overtime tier below 1 triggers a visible warning.
4. Assumptions and source classification
- Hours and multipliers are supplied by the user.
- Each overtime hour belongs to exactly one tier.
- All values use one pay period.
This calculator has no current policy-data dependency. Its work and pay assumptions are user supplied. Registered family-level regression suites exercise the shared work-logic engine and worked-result reconciliation.
5. Limitations
- No overtime entitlement, threshold, exemption, award, contract or jurisdiction rule is applied.
- A multiplier below 1 can produce pay below straight time and must be reviewed.
- This is not payroll or legal advice.
This is educational decision support, not personalised tax, legal, financial or career advice. Check the treatment of your circumstances under the rules that apply to you and seek qualified advice where appropriate.
6. Update and evidence policy
Registered family-level suites test formula invariants and example reconciliation; the release ledger records that coverage without claiming a separate oracle for every line of public copy. There is no official threshold or benchmark to refresh for this calculator. Work and pay inputs remain user-supplied because they vary by person, job and contract.
Change history
- : Initial public release of the Overtime Pay Using Your Rule planner and methodology.
Related reading
Use these practical guides to interpret the decision and its assumptions.
- How to use the Overtime Pay using your rule calculator safely
Calculate overtime from user-entered hours and multipliers without choosing a legal, award or employer rule.
Read guide