Enter a week of shifts and we'll model the true labour cost, ordinary hours, daily and weekly overtime, and weekend penalties, then show you where the cost is concentrated.
Takes ~2 minutes · All figures stay in your browser until you choose to share them
Daily Breakdown
Cost by day & rate
Overtime Split
Ordinary vs 150/200%
Penalty Impact
What loadings cost you
Roster Levers
Where to trim cost
On paper, a shift costs the base hourly rate. In practice, it rarely does. Once a day runs long, a week runs over the standard ordinary hours, or someone works a weekend, penalty and overtime loadings quietly stack on top — and the number the roster actually costs you can drift a long way from the number in your head. The Overtime Cost Modeller is a free roster-costing tool that takes one employee's week of shifts and shows the true labour cost: ordinary hours, daily and weekly overtime, weekend penalties and superannuation, all in one view, so you can see where the money is really going before you sign off the roster.
You enter a base hourly rate, the employment type (full-time, part-time, or casual), and the hours worked on each of the seven days. The model then splits every hour into how it's actually paid: ordinary time up to the standard daily and weekly caps, then overtime at escalating multipliers for hours beyond those caps, with separate loadings for Saturday and Sunday and an added casual loading where relevant. It layers superannuation on top of wages, then reports the weekly total, an effective cost-per-hour, an indicative annual figure if the pattern repeats, a day-by-day breakdown, and the share of your bill that is penalty loading rather than base pay. Importantly, the weekend and overtime multipliers it uses are generic, indicative rates for illustration — they are not pulled from any specific Modern Award, so the output is a directional estimate you should confirm against the award that actually covers your staff.
Owners and managers of Australian small businesses with rostered or shift-based staff — hospitality, retail, care, trades — who want to understand what a roster really costs before overtime and penalties land on the payroll.
The short answers are here. For anything else, ask below or get in touch.
No — and it says so plainly. The Saturday, Sunday and overtime multipliers are generic, indicative figures chosen to illustrate how loadings compound; they are not drawn from any specific Modern Award. Your applicable award may set different penalty rates, overtime thresholds and casual loadings. Use the result to understand the shape and scale of your roster cost, then confirm the exact rates against your award or with Fair Work before relying on the numbers for payroll or budgeting.
These tools work together to give you a clearer picture of your business.
Use these results to make better decisions. If you'd like a second pair of eyes on them, an advisor can walk through what they mean for the business.
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