Estimate only — not payroll, tax, or employment advice. Numbers stay in your browser.

Shift roster

Shift differential calculator for nursing and hospital shifts

A shift differential is extra pay for evenings, nights, weekends, or other hard-to-staff hours. Enter your base hourly rate, the differential as a percent or flat dollars, and how many hours it applies to — get premium pay and the effective hourly rate. This is a planning estimate, not your payroll system.

Shift roster

Base

Differentials

Shift stack

Live
Base
Diff
Premium / hr
Effective rate

When to use

Checking a new offer's night or weekend premium; reconstructing last week's stub when the line items look wrong; comparing two units with different differential tables.

When not to

Don't use this as official payroll or FLSA legal advice. If overtime and differentials mix, also run the OT with differential page.

Assumptions: Default model treats differential as either % of base or +$/hr on the hours you mark; stacking multiple differentials is optional and user-controlled.

Worked examples

  • Input

    Base $42/hr
    Night +15%
    36 hours

    Output

    Premium $6.30/hr
    Diff pay $226.80
    Effective $48.30/hr

    Enter the premium type your handbook uses — percent and flat are not interchangeable.

  • Input

    Base $38/hr
    Weekend +$4/hr
    12 hours

    Output

    Diff pay $48
    Effective $42/hr

Common traps

  • Some hospitals stack night + weekend; others pay the higher of the two — don't assume.
  • Differentials often must sit inside the regular rate before OT.
  • Average differential blog posts are not your unit's policy.

Next metric

Common questions

Extra pay for less desirable hours, usually a % or flat $/hr on top of base.
No federal mandate; it's employer or union policy once offered.
Often yes — it can raise the regular rate used for OT.
No — estimate only from numbers you enter.

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