Travel Nurse Pay Calculator
Compare pay across multiple travel nurse contracts at once.
I created this calculator to be used as a tool for comparing the pay for different travel nurse contracts across various locations. It is designed to factor in differences in cost of living and taxes. It also takes into account pay variables that are specific to travel nurses such as stipends and health insurance. The idea is to give you a quick and easy way to compare and choose your next contract. *It also has a feature to compare staff pay to travel pay*
By the way, these calculations aren’t really complicated. If you want to know how this calculator works, this article walks through how to calculate your pay by hand.
I personally use this calculator each time I’m searching for a new contract. It allows me to quickly compare and make decisions about where I want to go/what type of pay I need for a location to be worth it.
The calculator comes as an Excel sheet. Just put your email into the form below, and I’ll email the FREE calculator directly to you!
*You will need an computer with Excel to access and use the calculator*
Important tips for using this calculator:
- Contract name– Input the name or city of the contract you want to compare.
- Net Weekly Pay– Insert your hourly rate (don’t include stipends) into a paycheck calculator to get your estimated after tax pay. I recommend the paycheck calculator on smartasset.com – This is important to account for differences in taxes!
- Stipends (Housing + Meals & Incidentals)– Input your total weekly stipend pay (don’t include your hourly pay). Usually your stipends will include both your housing or lodging stipend as well as a meals/incidentals stipend.
- Estimated Monthly Rent– Get a rough estimate of how much housing will cost for your assignment (per month). I typically use furnishedfinder.com. It’s important to look at housing for the area you will be staying during your contract as housing costs can vary widely across the country.
- Monthly Health Insurance Payment– If you pay for private insurance, or if a portion of your paycheck goes towards health insurance, input that amount. If you do not have to pay anything for insurance, leave the value as 0. Again, this is how much you pay per month.
- Total Net Monthly– This number will be calculated for you in the yellow box. The amount here subtracts the major travel nursing pay variables of taxes, health insurance and rent. This way you have a true apples -to-apples comparison across multiple contracts. The calculator also gives you the total net weekly and total net hourly breakdowns.
Tips for the Staff Pay section of the calculator:
- Bi-weekly net pay– make sure you are inputting bi-weekly pay (not weekly like in the above calculator). Staff nurse jobs most often pay on a bi-weekly basis, and this calculator is made to fit that. Again, you want after tax pay here, so use a paycheck calculator like the one at smartasset.com to estimate this number.
*Helpful hint-if you just know your hourly pay rate, smartasset can calculate your bi-weekly net pay for you*
- Monthly cost of health insurance– Most staff jobs offer health insurance. Sometimes a portion of the cost of the health insurance still comes out of your paycheck. If this is the case for you, enter that amount in the box below (Make sure you are putting the amount you pay towards health insurance per month). If your health insurance is completely covered by your employer, leave the value as 0.
If you found this calculator freebie helpful, check out some of my other resources for travel nurses.
