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Payroll calculator

Weekly pay vs monthly pay: the processing-cost difference.

Fewer pay runs mean less payroll processing. Enter your own figures to estimate the difference, then see how earned-wage access lets you move to monthly while your team can still reach earned pay between paydays.

Quick answer

Moving from weekly to monthly payroll cuts the number of pay runs, so it cuts processing cost. This tool estimates that difference from your own figures. It is a weekly pay vs monthly pay comparison of processing cost only, and it leaves out National Insurance and the one-off cost of changing pay frequency, because those depend on your circumstances.

Your figures

Assumptions: a monthly schedule is 12 pay runs a year; your cost per run is held constant; only the number of pay runs changes. We compare processing cost only, and we exclude National Insurance and the one-off costs of changing pay frequency.

Estimated annual difference

£-

Pay runs a year now
-
On a monthly schedule
12
Cost per pay run
£-
Annual processing cost now
£-
On monthly
£-

Enter your figures above to see the estimate and the working.

This is an estimate based on your figures; results vary by your circumstances. It is not a quote or a guarantee.

What this leaves out. National Insurance depends on each worker's earnings pattern, your payroll scheme and other factors we cannot see here, so an NI figure would be a guess and there is no NI field or output. The one-off costs of switching frequency, such as payroll reconfiguration, employee consultation and communications, are also excluded. This tool estimates processing cost only.

The honest trade-off

A longer gap between paydays can be harder on lower-paid staff

Fewer pay runs cut processing cost, but a longer gap between paydays can be toughest for lower-paid, weekly-paid staff. The share of workers paid weekly fell from 28% in 2000 to 12% in 2019, and from 44% to 17% among the lowest-paid tenth (Resolution Foundation analysis of ONS figures, 2020). And a quarter of UK adults have less than £100 in savings to fall back on (Money and Pensions Service, 2022).

Earned-wage access bridges that gap. Your team can draw their already-earned pay between paydays, free, funded by you, up to a cap you set, so you can move to monthly payroll without leaving staff waiting on pay they've already earned.

How earned-wage access works The employer case for Wagecrew

FAQ

How the calculator works

How does this calculator work?
It estimates processing cost only. It takes your cost per pay run and multiplies it by the number of pay runs you drop when you move to monthly: cost per run × (your runs a year − 12). It does not model anything else.
What counts as a pay run here?
A monthly schedule is 12 pay runs a year, four-weekly is 13, fortnightly is 26 and weekly is 52. The tool holds your cost per run constant and only changes how many runs you make.
Why does it not estimate National Insurance savings?
National Insurance depends on each worker's earnings pattern, your payroll scheme and other factors this tool cannot see, so an NI figure would be a guess. There is no NI field and no NI output.
Does it include the cost of changing pay frequency?
No. It leaves out the one-off costs of switching, such as payroll reconfiguration, employee consultation and communications. Those are real and vary by employer, so the tool excludes them rather than guess.
Is this a quote or a guarantee?
No. It is an estimate built from the figures you enter, and results vary by your circumstances. It is not a quote, a guarantee or a promise of any particular outcome.
What does moving to monthly mean for weekly-paid staff?
A longer gap between paydays can be harder for weekly-paid staff. Earned-wage access lets a worker draw wages they have already earned before payday, up to a cap the employer sets, recovered from the next payslip.

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Move to monthly with earned-wage access in place.

See the worker app, the controls you set, and the payroll deduction file in one short call.

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