Roster cost calculator
What a week of roster actually costs, in NZD — with labour cost as a share of revenue and a check against the minimum wage in force from 1 April 2026.
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This calculator is a planning estimate, not payroll advice. It does not calculate holiday pay, KiwiSaver employer contributions, ACC levies or PAYE, all of which sit on top of the wage cost shown. Check Employment New Zealand and Inland Revenue, or take advice, before budgeting against these figures. It does not constitute legal, HR, or professional advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice specific to your business, workforce, or circumstances.
Weekly roster cost
Enter your team size, the average hours each person works and the average hourly rate. Add expected revenue to see labour cost as a percentage.
Estimated roster cost
Estimates only — verify before making decisions.
What this figure does and does not include
The number above is wage cost — hours multiplied by rate. It is the figure you can control while building a roster, which is why it is the one worth watching.
It is not your total cost of employment. On top of it sit KiwiSaver employer contributions, ACC levies, holiday pay accruing as leave is earned, and any allowances your agreements provide. Those are real and they are material, but they scale with the wage bill rather than being decided shift by shift — so for a rostering decision the wage cost is the number that changes when you act.
There are no statutory penalty rates in New Zealand
The premium multiplier is optional because nothing in law requires a higher rate for weekends, nights or overtime. New Zealand has no award system — any premium comes from the employment agreement. The one hard floor is the minimum wage: $23.95 an hour for adults and $19.16 for starting-out and training rates, from 1 April 2026.
Using labour cost percentage properly
Labour cost as a share of revenue is the most useful single number in rostering, and the most commonly misread. It only means something against a benchmark you set yourself from your own trading history — a café and a security firm have completely different structures, and a figure that is healthy in one is a crisis in the other.
Watch the trend rather than the level. A percentage drifting up week on week while revenue is flat means the roster is growing faster than the trade, and that is visible weeks before it shows up in a monthly P&L.
Or see the cost while you build the roster
A calculator tells you what a week costs once you have decided it. RosterElf shows the wage cost updating as you drag each shift, against the budget you set for that week.
Roster cost questions
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From 1 April 2026 the adult minimum wage is $23.95 an hour. The starting-out and training rates are both $19.16 an hour. Rates are reviewed each year and change on 1 April. The calculator flags an average rate below the adult rate, though an average is not itself proof of a breach — the test applies to each individual employee.
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Include them if they are on the roster and their cost varies with it. For a fixed salary that does not change with hours rostered, it is usually clearer to exclude them and treat their cost as fixed overhead — otherwise the weekly figure stops responding to the decisions you are trying to test.
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No. This is wage cost only. KiwiSaver employer contributions and ACC levies sit on top and scale with the wage bill. Because contribution rates change, we deliberately do not hard-code them here — check Inland Revenue guidance for the current employer contribution rate and add it to the annual figure.