Skip to content
CalculatorAI

Comparison

Best Free Shift Tracker

Compare the ways to keep track of the shifts you work and what they pay — a spreadsheet, a shift-calendar or hours app, or CalculatorAI's Shift & Hours Tracker, which prices every hour under your job's real rules, projects the next payday and checks your payslip.

Open Shift Tracker Handbook

CalculatorAI

Shift & Hours Tracker

AIFree

Overtime paid on the blended regular rate, with federal, California, Alaska, Nevada, Colorado and hospital 8/80 rules built in

The next payday projected before it lands, from logged shifts plus the rotation still to work

A payslip check that shows what should have been paid, line by line, beside what was

Rotations from 4-on-4-off to DuPont or your own cycle, on the calendar and in the forecast

SpreadsheetShift & hours apps
Most hours apps answer one question: how many hours did I work? Shift-calendar apps answer another: when am I on next? Neither tells a night nurse whether her overtime was paid on the right rate, or tells someone with two part-time jobs what Friday's paycheck should be. A spreadsheet can, if you build the formulas — and rebuild them every time the rota changes.
CalculatorAI's Shift & Hours Tracker takes your rules once — the rate, night, weekend and holiday differentials, unpaid meal breaks, the workweek your employer uses and the overtime rules of your state — and prices every shift with them. Set your rotation once and the calendar fills itself. You see what the next payday should bring before it lands, and when the payslip arrives you type its gross and see whether it matches. Unlimited jobs and history, free, no card, no ads.

What a shift tracker has to get right

Overtime on the right rate

Federal 40-hour weeks, California daily, double-time and 7th-day rules, Alaska, Nevada, Colorado and hospital 8/80 — with overtime paid on the blended regular rate, differentials included, as US law requires.

Nights, weekends, holidays

Percent or flat extras for exactly the minutes inside a window, stacked the way payroll stacks them. A shift that runs past midnight into Saturday picks up the weekend rate from midnight.

Payday before it lands

Each job knows its pay period and payday. The forecast adds the shifts you logged to the ones your rotation still has scheduled — base, differentials and overtime, before tax.

Payslip check

Type the gross on your payslip and see what your shifts should have paid beside it, line by line, with the difference — a missing shift or overtime paid at base rate shows up at once.

Rotations and a calendar

4-on-4-off, 2-2-3 Pitman, DuPont, Panama, Continental, 5-2 or your own cycle up to 56 days — on a month calendar, in the forecast, one tap to log.

Several jobs, one place

Every job with its own rate, rules, currency and pay schedule; totals across jobs; a shared shift book for a couple planning around two rotas or a small team.

AI Assistant

Ask what the next paycheck will be

The site assistant reads the same figures the tracker shows — hours this pay period, overtime so far, the projected payday, a payslip that came in short — and answers with your numbers.

What it helps with

A1

Answer 'how many hours have I worked this period?' and 'what will payday be?' from your own shifts.

A2

Explain where overtime and differentials came from, week by week.

A3

Point out a payslip that does not match the shifts it covers, and what to ask payroll.

A4

Log a shift from one sentence — “I worked 7pm to 7am last night” — the form opens filled for you to save; on Pro a roster photo becomes a list of shifts.

CalculatorAI Copilot

Shift assistant

Live
What will my next paycheck be, and did last week's overtime get paid right?
Your next payday is Friday the 17th: about $2,964 gross for 66 hours, including $214 of night differential and 4 hours of overtime. Last period's payslip came in $6.93 short — its 6 overtime hours look paid at 1.5× your base $46 instead of on the blended $48.31 a night-heavy week gives you. The breakdown to take to payroll is on the Payslip check tab.

Next payday

$2,964

Overtime

4 h

Payslip

−$6.93

The assistant quotes the tracker's figures; it is an estimate, not payroll, and it never contacts your employer.

Live Product Preview

The next payday, at a glance

The projected gross pay with what is already earned, hours and overtime this period, the differentials, where the pay comes from line by line, and the shifts coming up — on a clean page with no ads.

The next payday, at a glance

Comparison Table

CalculatorAISpreadsheetShift & hours apps
Hours from start, end and breaksFormulas needed
Overtime on the blended regular rateFormulas neededRarely
State rules (CA daily and 7th day, AK, NV, CO, 8/80)Partial
Night, weekend and holiday differentialsFormulas neededPartial
Rotation calendar (Pitman, DuPont, 4-on-4-off…)Partial
Payday forecast from the scheduleRarely
Payslip check against your shiftsManual
Clock-in timer (start, break, stop — synced across devices)
Reminders before a shift and the day before payday
Warning before a shift takes you into overtimeRarely
Geofence or automatic clock-in by locationPartial
Unlimited jobs and history, freePaid plans
No ads, no card, works in any browserPartial

Share this comparison

Publish it on your site

Copy the styled table, Markdown source, or a live widget that stays up to date.

Where CalculatorAI Wins

  • Overtime paid on the blended regular rate, with federal, California, Alaska, Nevada, Colorado and hospital 8/80 rules built in
  • The next payday projected before it lands, from logged shifts plus the rotation still to work
  • A payslip check that shows what should have been paid, line by line, beside what was
  • Rotations from 4-on-4-off to DuPont or your own cycle, on the calendar and in the forecast
  • Unlimited jobs and full history free — no 3-job cap, no 21-day window, no ads; CSV import and export on every plan
  • Several jobs in their own currencies, a shared shift book on Pro, in 10 languages

Considerations & Limitations

  • No geofence or automatic clock-in — the timer starts and stops when you press it, never by your phone's location
  • Gross pay only — no tax withholding or take-home pay yet; the paycheck calculator does that step
  • No native phone app — it runs in the browser and installs from it as an app
  • No sync with Google, Apple or Outlook calendars — reminders come from the tracker as push notifications
  • Overtime rulesets are US rules; elsewhere use 'my own rule' with your contract's thresholds — the assistant helps you set it up
  • An estimate, not payroll or legal advice — an employer or a union contract may legitimately differ
FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about hours, overtime rules, differentials, the payday forecast and what the tracker does and does not do.

01What is the best free shift tracker?
It depends on what you need from it. If your employer wants clock-ins checked against your phone's location, a time-clock app with GPS tracking is the tool. If you want to know what your shifts pay — with differentials, your state's overtime rules and a payday forecast — and to check the payslip against them, CalculatorAI's Shift & Hours Tracker does that for free, with a clock-in timer that works across your phone and computer, unlimited jobs and history, no card and no ads.
02How does it compare with HoursTracker, Hours Keeper, Supershift, My Shift Planner and Clockify?
Checked October 2026, and plans change. HoursTracker's free version keeps 3 jobs and 21 days of history; Premium is $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year. Hours Keeper is free with ads, or $1.99 a month. Supershift is a rotation calendar, with Pro at $3.99 a month or $9.99 a year. My Shift Planner's Pro is $0.99 a month or $9.99 a year. Clockify is a team time tracker whose overtime features start on the Standard plan at $5.49 per seat a month, billed yearly. Most of them are native phone apps, and some add GPS location to the clock-in; CalculatorAI runs in the browser (it installs from there as an app), and its clock-in timer has no geofence. CalculatorAI adds what they leave out: state overtime rules on the blended regular rate, differentials by the minute, a payday forecast and a payslip check.
03Why is overtime paid on the 'blended' rate?
US law pays overtime at 1.5 times your regular rate, and the regular rate includes night, weekend and holiday differentials — when you worked at more than one rate in a week, it is the weighted average of them all (DOL Fact Sheet #56A). A week of 44 hours at $30 with 8 night hours at +$3 has a regular rate of $30.55, so each overtime hour carries a premium of $15.27, not $15. Many apps and spreadsheets use the base rate and come out short.
04Does it work for nurses on 12-hour shifts and the 8/80 rule?
Yes. Night shifts across midnight are one row, a rotation — a preset, or your own cycle such as three 12s a week — fills the calendar, charge shifts can carry their own rate, and hospitals that use the 8/80 system (overtime after 8 hours a day or 80 in a fixed 14-day period, DOL Fact Sheet #54) are a built-in ruleset.
05Can it remind me before a shift, and does it sync with Google Calendar?
It sends push notifications: before a shift (30 minutes to 12 hours ahead, rotation days included), the day before payday with what it should bring, and the evening before the shift that takes your week into overtime. Turn them on in Jobs & rules → Settings → Reminders, then allow notifications on your phone. It does not sync with Google, Apple or Outlook calendars — your schedule lives in the tracker's own calendar.
06Does it calculate take-home pay?
Not yet. Every figure is gross pay before tax. For take-home pay, put the projected gross into the paycheck calculator, which handles federal and state withholding.

See what your next payday should be

Open the tracker and look at the example: a hospital night rotation with a night differential and a charge shift, a weekend café job, a payday forecast and a payslip that came in short. Your own jobs replace it the moment you add one.

Open Shift Tracker

Guides

How-to guides that use this tool

All 3 guides
TaxesBaker Mayfield's $165M Contract: What He Keeps After Taxes9 min readTaxesNo Tax on Tips and Overtime: What It Actually Does to Your Paycheck8 min readTaxesQuarterly Estimated Taxes for Freelancers: A Plain-English Guide9 min read

We use cookies to keep you signed in. Cookie policy