Paycheck calculators compared
If you came looking for a particular brand's calculator, each page below describes it fairly, lists what it leaves out with the URL and date where we read it, sizes the documented differences for your salary, and runs the same paycheck here. No ratings, no affiliate links.
The method is the same on every page. First a fair description of what the tool does, from its own page. Then what it does well. Then what it leaves out, each item with evidence and a date — a 2022 wage base in a FAQ, an allowances-only W-4, a missing filing status, a blocked page. Then a feature table with our column beside it, a panel that sizes each documented difference for your salary using our engine under that assumption, and the calculator itself. Where a page could not be read, the comparison says so rather than guessing.
What we found across the sector, in one paragraph: the large brands are strong on interaction (ADP), inputs (PaycheckCity) or itemisation (SmartAsset) and weak on provenance — none of the nine names an author or shows the date its figures were checked, several carried figures from 2022 to 2025 on the day we read them, and most exist to sell payroll software, advisor introductions or job listings. This site's answer is the methodology page: every figure with its document and date, a public verification log, and an AI that can only explain what the engine computed.
- ADPADP Paycheck Calculator vs This One
ADP’s calculator is a clean, live tool built by the largest payroll company in the country, and it is deliberately limited: four pay frequencies, no local taxes, no year-to-date, no year on the page. Here is a fair description, the gaps with evidence, and the same paycheck run here..
- SmartAssetSmartAsset Paycheck Calculator vs This One
SmartAsset’s calculator shows more lines than almost anyone — SDI, SUI, FLI, workers’ comp — and it still asks for withholding allowances, a concept the W-4 dropped in 2020. Here is a fair description, the gaps with evidence, and the same paycheck run here..
- PaycheckCityPaycheckCity vs This Calculator
PaycheckCity is the reference payroll calculator: the Symmetry engine behind it powers many others. It asks for more than anyone and shows less than it could, and some of its explanatory text has not been updated in years.
- GustoGusto Paycheck Calculator vs This One
Gusto’s calculators are built for employers and they show it: company state, home and work addresses, the real state withholding forms, fringe benefits. They are also the only large-brand calculators with a Spanish version.
- QuickBooksQuickBooks Paycheck Calculator vs This One
Intuit’s calculator is a tidy multistep form with a download at the end and state pages titled for 2026. It supports two pay frequencies.
- Talent.comTalent.com Tax Calculator vs This One
Talent.com’s calculator answers one question fast: what does this salary leave, in this state, per year, month, week, day and hour. It asks nothing about your filing status, W-4 or deductions, and it exists to send you to job listings.
- Calculator.netCalculator.net Take-Home Pay Calculator vs This One
Calculator.net’s tool is the quiet one that gets the federal numbers right, including the 2026 deductions nobody else models, and asks you to type your own state and city tax rates. Here is a fair description, the gaps, and the same paycheck run here..
- Suburban Computer ServicesSuburban Computer Paycheck Calculator vs This One
Suburban Computer Services has run a free paycheck calculator since 2006 and says it sees over 12,000 visitors a day. It is a plain form that handles tips, overtime and all fifty states, and it does not calculate local taxes or show which year’s tables it uses.
- BankrateBankrate Paycheck Calculator vs This One
Bankrate is a large financial publisher whose calculators are licensed widgets. Its paycheck page could not be read by our tools on either attempt — a human-verification wall on one and a 405 on the other — so this page says exactly what was verified and what was not, and offers the same paycheck computed here..