What PaycheckCity actually calculates
PaycheckCity's salary tool is built around the W-4 as filed: filing status, multiple-jobs checkbox, dependent credits, other income, and extra withholding all feed the percentage method. It shows the per-period check, which is why the annual figure has to be back-derived.
Why this never matches your stub to the dollar
Any paycheck estimator — theirs or ours — is missing things only your employer knows.
- • Your filed W-4: dependents, other income, and extra withholding all shift the number.
- • Post-tax deductions: union dues, garnishments, ESPP, life insurance, parking.
- • Local taxes: city wage taxes (NYC, Philadelphia, Detroit, Columbus) and school-district levies.
- • State disability and paid-leave premiums: CA SDI, NY PFL, WA Cares, NJ TDI.
- • Mid-year raises, bonuses, and hitting the Social Security cap change later checks.
How our version differs from the brand's tool
PaycheckCity's public tool is a lead-in to their payroll product and asks for your W-4 line by line. Ours trades that granularity for speed: six inputs, an instant answer, a full line-by-line breakdown, and shareable results. Use ours to sanity-check an offer or plan a change; use your employer's payroll portal for the number that will actually hit your account.
Reading the effective vs marginal rate
The bracket you are 'in' applies only to the dollars above that threshold. Someone in the 22% bracket typically pays an effective federal rate in the 10–14% range. That gap is why a raise never gets 'taxed away' — the extra dollars are taxed at the marginal rate, but the rest of your income is untouched.
FAQ
Is this the official PaycheckCity calculator?
No. RevenueLab is independent and not affiliated with PaycheckCity. This page runs the same publicly described method with 2026 figures so you can get the number without a sign-up or a sales follow-up.
How accurate is a PaycheckCity-style paycheck estimate?
Within a few percent for a standard W-4 with no local taxes. It will drift on anything your employer knows and we don't: local wage taxes, state disability premiums, post-tax deductions, and mid-year pay changes.
Why is my real paycheck lower than this?
Almost always post-tax deductions and local taxes. Check your stub for city wage tax, state disability, union dues, and benefit lines that are deducted after tax — none of those appear in a generic estimator.
Does this handle 2026 tax rates?
Yes — 2026 federal brackets, the $15,750 single standard deduction, and the $184,500 Social Security wage base are all built in.
How this calculator is built
Independently maintained
Written by Sam Doshi and the RevenueLab editorial team. We don't sell the data feeds this tool is built on.
Sourced from primary data
Benchmarks come from public AdSense / Stripe / IRS disclosures and reader-submitted data — never third-party "$X per view" claims. Full methodology.
Last editorial review
Reviewed on a rolling quarterly cycle. Dated reviews are published on the methodology record for each calculator.
Editorial standards
See our editorial policy and disclaimer. Results are estimates, not advice.