About this site

About PaycheckCalc

By Barron Hansen, Founder · Updated May 28, 2026

PaycheckCalc launched in early 2026 to fill a small but real gap: there was no free, well-sourced US paycheck calculator that covered current federal brackets, FICA wage bases, all 50 state schedules, and a meaningful set of local layers in one place. Existing options either gated detailed output behind signup, ran on stale data, or skipped local taxes entirely. The target user is anyone running paycheck math for a real decision: comparing two job offers, planning a cross-state relocation, tuning a 401(k) deferral, or sanity-checking what a pay stub should look like at a new salary. Tax data is reviewed against IRS, SSA, and state revenue department publications before each tax-year cutover, with mid-year revisions when a state or municipality changes a rate or threshold. The freshness date in the byline above is the canonical review timestamp for the calculator engine and the prose on every page. No account is required, no payment is collected, and no salary data leaves the browser. The site stays free through unobtrusive display ads on calculator pages and content pages, never on the homepage.

Why I built it

Most people have a rough sense of what they earn but a much hazier picture of what they actually take home. Federal brackets, state rates, FICA, local taxes, and pre-tax deductions interact in ways that are not intuitive. PaycheckCalc was built to make those interactions visible and easy to model, especially for people comparing job offers, planning a relocation, or deciding how much to put into a 401(k).

Data-freshness commitment

Every state and federal figure is sourced from the official tax authority before publication: IRS Revenue Procedures, SSA wage-base announcements, state revenue department publications, and municipal code references. The byline date above is the last full source review. When a state or city changes a rate between tax years, the affected pages are reviewed and a new freshness date is published in the same cycle.

No tracking on salary inputs

Salary inputs, filing status, and state selections stay in the browser; the site has no backend, no database, and no API to capture inputs. Standard analytics measure page traffic in aggregate, not individual sessions. There are no account systems, no cookies tied to salary entries, and no third-party trackers on input fields. The result: a paycheck estimate you can run without leaving an identifiable trail.

How it stays free

The site is funded by unobtrusive display ads on calculator and content pages. There is no premium tier, no subscription, no email gate, and no upsell to paid software. The homepage is intentionally ad-free so the primary calculator stays uncluttered. Ad slots are reserved with CSS to prevent the layout from shifting when an ad loads or fails to load.

Who I am professionally

I'm Barron Hansen, a US-based software developer and product builder. I publish a small group of free calculator tools under the SquarePeg Ideas name, including a rent vs. buy calculator, a TDEE and macro calculator, a business day calculator, and a short-term rental ROI calculator. Each tool follows the same approach as PaycheckCalc: primary-source data, no signup, and no paywalled results.

Frequently asked questions

Who created PaycheckCalc?

PaycheckCalc was built by Barron Hansen, a US-based software developer and product builder, under the SquarePeg Ideas name. SquarePeg Ideas publishes a small group of free calculator tools that share an approach: primary-source data, no signup, no paywall, and no upsell. Barron handles product, engineering, and tax-data review personally.

How is the site funded?

The site is funded by unobtrusive display ads on calculator pages, never on the homepage. There is no premium tier, no subscription, no email capture, and no data resale. Ad placements are sized to avoid layout shift and reserved with CSS so the page never reflows when an ad slot loads or stays empty.

Is my data tracked?

Salary inputs and state selections never leave your browser; the calculator runs entirely client-side and the site has no backend. Standard analytics for aggregate traffic patterns are in place, scoped to page views and not to inputs. No accounts, no cookies tied to your salary, no email capture, and no third-party trackers on input fields.

How often is the data updated?

Federal brackets, FICA wage bases, and retirement contribution limits refresh when the IRS publishes the relevant inflation-adjustment guidance, typically October or November of the prior year. State and local rates refresh on each jurisdiction's legislative or budget cycle. The review timestamp in the byline reflects the most recent end-to-end source check.

Can I contact the team?

Yes. The contact page accepts tax-data corrections, feature requests, embed inquiries, and general questions; you can also email hello@paychecktakehomecalculator.com directly. Bug reports are most useful when they include the state, filing status, salary, and a link to the source you believe is correct. Replies typically land within a few business days.

Is the source code open?

The PaycheckCalc tax engine is not currently open source. The site is built on Next.js with a TypeScript tax engine that reads bracket data from versioned config files. If there is community interest in contributing state-specific data or local-tax coverage, get in touch through the contact page and we can scope a path.