← Gig driver net pay calculator
Every gig platform's earnings screen does the same arithmetic: base pay plus tips plus promotions, added up and divided by the hours you were online, into one gross-per-hour figure. It is fast, and it is the authoritative record of what a session actually paid out.
What it has no field for is the car. Gas, tires, oil changes, and insurance are entirely the driver's own cost, and no platform subtracts them before showing a per-hour number -- it has no way to know your gas price, your MPG, or what your insurance actually costs. So "I made $33.85 an hour" on the earnings screen and "I kept $33.85 an hour" get treated as the same sentence when they usually are not.
| Question | Where to answer it |
|---|---|
| What did this session pay out -- base pay, tips, promotions? | The app's own earnings screen -- the authoritative record, and this calculator does not replace it. |
| What did the car actually cost this session, at my own gas price and MPG? | This calculator -- type the session's numbers, get an answer immediately, nothing installed. |
| What should I set aside for self-employment tax on what's left? | This calculator's tax reserve figure -- enter your own reserve percentage. |
| What gross pay would this session need to hit a take-home goal? | This calculator's target take-home solver -- the earnings screen has no reverse solver. |
| Can I check the number without creating an account or linking a platform? | This calculator -- a static page, no sign-up, nothing linked. |
A worked example, computed from this calculator's own arithmetic: a session pays $220 for 95 miles and 6.5 hours online. The earnings screen would show $33.85 an hour. Pricing the vehicle at this session's own gas price (28 MPG, $3.40/gallon), an 8-cent per-mile maintenance reserve, and $145 a month in insurance and other fixed costs prorated across 1,400 typical monthly miles brings the vehicle cost to $28.98 for this session, leaving $29.39 an hour before tax. A 25% self-employment tax reserve on that profit brings what's actually kept to $22.04 an hour -- $11.81 less than the $33.85 the earnings screen displayed, a 35% gap the screen never shows.
This tool needs no account and no gig-platform link: it is a static
page, the arithmetic runs in your browser, and your gross pay, miles,
and every other figure stay on this device -- nothing is uploaded
anywhere, and a shareable link carries your inputs after the
# in the URL rather than on a server.
Both, for different numbers. The app's earnings screen is the fastest way to see what a session paid out -- base pay, tips, and promotions, added up and divided by the hours you were online. It is also the authoritative record of what was actually paid, and this calculator does not try to replace it. What the earnings screen has no field for is the vehicle: gas, wear on tires and the engine, and insurance are entirely the driver's own cost, and none of those platforms subtract them before showing a per-hour figure. This calculator takes that same session's gross pay, miles, and hours and prices the car on top of it, plus a self-employment tax reserve, so the number it shows is what actually stayed in the driver's pocket rather than what the app paid out.
Because the platform has no way to know it. Gas price, fuel economy, how a driver's own car wears, and what insurance actually costs are figures no gig platform has access to -- they vary by driver, by car, and by week, and the app only knows what it paid out, not what a driver spent to earn it. A per-hour figure that never subtracts a cost the platform cannot see is not wrong, exactly; it is answering a narrower question than "what did I keep."
A worked example, computed from this calculator's own arithmetic: a session pays $220 for 95 miles and 6.5 hours online. The app's earnings screen would show $33.85 an hour. This session's own gas price (28 MPG at $3.40/gallon), an 8 cent per mile maintenance reserve, and $145 a month in insurance and other fixed costs prorated across 1,400 typical monthly miles price the vehicle at $28.98 for this session, leaving $29.39 an hour before tax. A 25% self-employment tax reserve on that profit brings it to $22.04 an hour actually kept -- $11.81 less than the $33.85 the app displayed, a 35% gap the earnings screen never shows.
No. It prices one session at a time, from the numbers you type in -- no account, no linked gig-platform login, and no background tracking. That is a real trade: an app that links your accounts and logs mileage automatically saves the typing, at the cost of an account and, on some platforms, a paid tier for the deeper breakdown. This calculator is the other trade -- nothing to sign up for, and an answer as soon as you have one session's numbers to type in.
Also: How much should I set aside for gig driving taxes? and this calculator vs. the Gridwise app, for automatic tracking across sessions.