How do restaurants split tips between staff?

Most use one of three rules: an even split, a split by hours worked, or hours weighted by role. Many also run a tip out on top, where a percentage of sales goes to the bar and support staff.

Should tips be split by hours or evenly?

By hours is more common and handles cuts and doubles without argument. An even split is simpler and works when everyone worked the same shift. Neither is fairer in the abstract — what matters is agreeing the rule in advance.

Can I split tips and run a tip out in the same place?

Yes. The tabs at the top of the tool switch between the tip out, the pool and a plain even split, and each one saves its own setups.

Restaurant

Restaurant tip split calculator

No spreadsheet required.

Saved setupsSave tonight’s rules and next shift is two taps.

Pool to split

Split it

Everyone gets the same amount for every hour they worked.

Who worked

0 hrs

Person 1 name
$0.00
Person 1 hours
hrs
Person 2 name
$0.00
Person 2 hours
hrs
Person 3 name
$0.00
Person 3 hours
hrs

Tipped out first

A barback or a runner the pool pays before it splits — a share of the pool for the hours they were there, a percentage of sales, or a flat hourly rate.

Pool

$0.00

Distributed$0.00

Adds up to the pool exactly.

TYPTAPP does the math. Your workplace is responsible for making sure its tip policies follow applicable laws. More

Which one is your restaurant doing?

The two words get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing. A tip out is money moving from one person to another — you keep your own tips and pay a share to the support staff. A tip pool is money that never belonged to one person: everything goes into a pot and comes back out by an agreed rule.

Plenty of houses run both — a pool among the servers, and a tip out from that pool to the bar and the support staff. The tabs above cover all of it.

A pool, then a tip out

If your house pools first and tips out second, run them in that order: split the pot in Tip pool, then take the tip out from the pooled total in Tip out, using Total tips or a custom amount as the base. Both summaries copy as plain text, so the two can go in the same message.

Set it up once, use it every shift

Save the crew and the rules under the name of the shift — Friday bar, Saturday dining, Brunch, Closing. Names, roles and weights are kept; hours and sales are not, because they change every night. Next shift is the numbers and nothing else.

Everything stays on your phone

Employee names, hours, sales figures and tip totals are never sent anywhere. Setups live in this browser's own storage and can be deleted in one tap from the privacy page. There is no account and no server-side copy.

TYPTAPP does the math. Your workplace is responsible for making sure its tip policies follow applicable laws.

Common questions

How do restaurants split tips between staff?: Most use one of three rules: an even split, a split by hours worked, or hours weighted by role. Many also run a tip out on top, where a percentage of sales goes to the bar and support staff.
Should tips be split by hours or evenly?: By hours is more common and handles cuts and doubles without argument. An even split is simpler and works when everyone worked the same shift. Neither is fairer in the abstract — what matters is agreeing the rule in advance.
Can I split tips and run a tip out in the same place?: Yes. The tabs at the top of the tool switch between the tip out, the pool and a plain even split, and each one saves its own setups.