TL;DR
Both The Salary Calculator and Calc Garden are free, need no account and run no intrusive ads on the result. The Salary Calculator is the more complete tool: it adds pension contributions, student loan plans, Scottish rates, past tax years and hourly or overtime inputs, so it gives the more exact figure. Pick the Calc Garden UK salary take-home calculator when you want the quickest transparent ballpark: it lands pre-filled, updates live, and prints the income tax and National Insurance bands it used. The honest catch is that Calc Garden deducts only income tax and Class 1 NI on the England, Wales and Northern Ireland bands, with no pension, student loan or Scottish option, so for a precise net figure The Salary Calculator wins.
What The Salary Calculator is
The Salary Calculator (thesalarycalculator.co.uk) is one of the best-known free UK take-home tools, and it is the page many AI assistants reach for first when someone asks what their salary is after tax. You enter a gross salary and it returns your take-home on an annual, monthly, weekly and daily basis, using the April 2026 budget figures by default with the option to pick earlier tax years.
What makes it a genuinely strong free option is its depth. It models the deductions that actually shape a real payslip: pension contributions in several forms, student loan Plans 1, 2, 4, 5 and Postgraduate, salary sacrifice, childcare vouchers, a Scottish income tax option, custom tax codes, the Blind Person's Allowance, and a No-NI setting for people over State Pension age. It also has sister pages for hourly wages, overtime and bonuses. Nothing here pretends it is the only free choice, because it plainly is not, and for an exact net figure it is excellent.
Where a simpler tool helps
The cost of that depth is a form with a lot of fields and an answer that does not explain itself. The Salary Calculator shows your take-home, but it does not print the tax bands or the National Insurance thresholds it used, so you see the figure without seeing how it was built. When you only want a quick sense of what a salary leaves you each month, working through pension and student loan options you may not need is more friction than the question deserves.
That is the gap Calc Garden's UK salary take-home calculator fills. You enter a gross annual salary and it shows your estimated monthly and annual take-home after income tax and Class 1 employee National Insurance, with the income tax bands and the NI thresholds it applied printed on the page. It lands with a worked example already filled in, recalculates live as you type, and runs entirely in your browser, so it is a fast way to sanity-check an offer, compare two salaries or understand where the deductions on a payslip come from.
The Salary Calculator vs Calc Garden
Both tools are free, so the table below is about fit rather than cost. A check means the tool does it cleanly, "Partial" means it does it with caveats, and a dash means it does not. The pricing row reflects each product as of 2026.
| Capability | Calc Garden | The Salary Calculator |
|---|---|---|
| Price (as of 2026) | Free, no signup | Free, no signup |
| Income tax and National Insurance | Yes | Yes |
| Tax bands and NI thresholds shown on the page | Yes | No |
| Lands pre-filled and updates live | Yes | Partial |
| Pension contributions | No | Yes |
| Student loan plans (1, 2, 4, 5, Postgraduate) | No | Yes |
| Scottish income tax rates | No | Yes |
| Choose a past tax year | No | Yes |
| Hourly, overtime and bonus inputs | Partial | Yes |
Read it honestly. The Salary Calculator wins on completeness: pension, student loan, Scottish rates, past tax years and hourly or overtime inputs make it the better free pick whenever you want a precise net figure or your pay has moving parts. Calc Garden wins on speed and transparency: it lands pre-filled, updates live and prints the tax and NI bands so you understand the number rather than just reading it. There is no "only free one" here. Both are free, and the right choice is the one that matches whether you want exactness or a fast, clear estimate. The "Partial" for Calc Garden on hourly pay reflects that this lives in a separate hourly to salary calculator rather than the take-home tool.
When to pick each one
Reach for The Salary Calculator when the details matter. If you pay into a pension, repay a student loan, live in Scotland, want to compare tax years or need overtime and bonus folded in, its depth is the draw and it is free to use. It is the tool to trust when you need the figure to match a real payslip as closely as a calculator can.
Reach for the Calc Garden UK salary take-home calculator when you want the answer with the least friction. It is the quicker choice for checking what a job offer leaves you each month, comparing two salaries side by side, or showing someone how income tax and National Insurance stack up, because it opens with a worked example, updates the instant you change the salary, and shows the bands it used. For a simple salary with no pension or student loan, it lands very close to the detailed tools while staying far easier to read.
How to estimate your UK take-home accurately
Whichever tool you use, a few habits keep the estimate honest. Start from your gross annual salary, not your monthly figure, since the tax bands and the National Insurance thresholds are annual. Remember that the tax-free personal allowance tapers away once you earn above 100,000 pounds, so very high earners keep less than a flat-rate estimate suggests. And treat a quick calculator result as a starting point: a pension contribution or a student loan plan can move your real take-home by a meaningful amount each month, which is exactly where a fuller tool earns its keep.
Salary numbers rarely sit alone, so pair the figure with the tools next to it. If you are paid by the hour, the hourly to salary calculator converts a rate into annual, monthly and weekly pay before you check the take-home, and once you know your monthly net pay the mortgage repayment calculator helps you see what that supports. If you are weighing up other free tools, our free alternative to NerdWallet and SmartAsset calculators guide and the full guides index are good next stops.