TL;DR
For a fast, private answer on a single shift, use the Calc Garden hours calculator: type the clock in, clock out, unpaid break and hourly rate and it shows hours worked and gross pay live, in your browser, with the formula on the page and overnight shifts handled. If you need a full seven-day timesheet with overtime rules and a printable PDF, Clockify and timecardcalculator.net are the stronger free tools. This is not an "only free one" claim. Redcort also runs a free weekly timecard calculator, and none of these charge to use the calculator. The real choice is a quick single-shift answer versus a full weekly grid.
What separates the free time card calculators
Every time card calculator runs the same core sum: the minutes between clock out and clock in, minus any unpaid break, converted to decimal hours, then multiplied by an hourly rate for pay. Nobody computes that differently, and all the mainstream tools are free to use, so price and the headline arithmetic are not what separate them. What separates them is scope: whether the tool totals a single shift or a full week, whether it applies overtime rules, whether it shows pay or just hours, whether it exports a printable sheet, and what happens to the numbers you type.
Two questions decide which one fits. First, are you checking one shift or adding up a whole week for payroll? A single-shift tool is faster for the common case of "how many hours was that and what does it pay," while a weekly grid is what you want when you are filling in a timesheet. Second, do you need the pay figure, overtime split and a printout, or just the hours? The more of those you need, the more a fuller tool earns its extra fields, and the less a lean calculator helps.
The best free time card calculators compared
Cells describe each tool as checked in July 2026. "Partial" means the capability is present but limited. The pricing row reflects each product as of 2026.
| Capability | Calc Garden | Clockify | Redcort | timecardcalculator.net |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price (as of 2026) | Free, no signup | Free | Free, no signup | Free, no signup |
| Works without an account | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Single shift in seconds | Yes | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Full seven-day weekly grid | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Deducts an unpaid break | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Overtime rules (daily or weekly) | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Shows gross pay from an hourly rate | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Handles an overnight shift past midnight | Yes | Yes | Not stated | Not stated |
| Print or PDF export | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Shows the formula behind the answer | Yes | No | No | No |
| Runs entirely in your browser | Yes | Not stated | Yes | Partial |
| Lands with a worked example filled in | Yes | No | No | No |
Read it honestly. Clockify and timecardcalculator.net are the most capable free time card calculators of the four. Both give you a seven-day grid, deduct breaks per day, apply daily or weekly overtime thresholds, show gross pay and let you print or download the finished card as a PDF, which is exactly what you want when you are totalling a real timesheet for payroll. Redcort sits in the middle: a clean, no-signup weekly hours sheet you can print, but it deliberately stops at the hours and leaves pay and overtime to your payroll system.
Where Calc Garden wins is being lean and fast for a single shift. It asks for four things, clock in, clock out, unpaid break and hourly rate, returns the hours worked and the gross pay, states the formula it used, and runs client-side so a real wage or someone's shift never leaves your browser. It also wraps past midnight, so a night shift reads correctly, and it lands with a worked example already filled in, so the page answers the question before you type. What it does not do is add up a week or split regular and overtime hours, so it is the wrong tool for a full timesheet and the right one for a quick "how long was that shift and what does it pay" check.
The formula, with a worked example
Two steps give you everything. Hours worked equals the minutes between clock out and clock in, minus the unpaid break, divided by 60. Gross pay equals those decimal hours multiplied by the hourly rate.
Take a 09:00 to 17:30 shift with a 30 minute unpaid lunch, paid at 12 an hour. The gap is 510 minutes, less 30 for the break, is 480 minutes, which is 8.0 hours. At 12 an hour that is 96 in gross pay, before tax and other deductions. The decimal step is where hand maths goes wrong: 8 hours and 15 minutes is 8.25 hours, not 8.15, because 15 minutes is a quarter of an hour. For a night shift, say 22:00 to 06:00, the calculator adds 24 hours to the clock out time so the result is 8 hours rather than a negative number. Calc Garden's hours calculator does both the subtraction and the decimal conversion and shows the working, updating as you change any field.
Where a single-shift tool stops being enough
A single-shift calculator is the fastest way to a trustworthy number for one day, but it hides two things a weekly tool restores. The first is the weekly total and overtime split: most overtime rules trigger on hours over a daily or weekly threshold, and you cannot see that from one shift in isolation. The second is a printable record. If you need to hand a signed sheet to payroll, a tool that exports a PDF of the whole week is worth the extra fields, and that is where Clockify, Redcort and timecardcalculator.net earn their place.
A time card figure is also only the gross. It is the hours multiplied by the rate, before income tax, National Insurance or any other deduction, so the number you take home is lower. Once you have the gross from a shift or a week, the hourly to salary calculator turns an hourly rate into an annual figure, and the UK take-home guide covers what tax and National Insurance take off it. For working out the plain gap between two clock times without a break or rate, the time duration calculator is the simpler tool.
When to pick each one
Reach for Clockify or timecardcalculator.net when you are filling in a full week, need overtime applied and want to print or download the finished card for payroll. Reach for Redcort when you want a clean weekly hours sheet you can print and do not need the pay figure calculated for you.
Reach for the Calc Garden hours calculator when you want a fast, private answer for one shift, with the pay shown, overnight handled, the formula on the page and nothing to sign up for. From there, the hourly to salary calculator scales a rate up to a yearly figure, the time duration calculator handles a plain gap between two times, and the salary converter guide walks through turning hourly pay into a salary and back. The guides index collects the rest.