Award pay calculator

The Award pay calculator is a public, three-step wizard that works out which modern award and classification likely cover a job, then prices a typical week against that award's published rates. It is for someone asking about their own pay; it does not create a payslip or a result in an account. The Start again button clears everything and returns to the first question.

The steps are Your job & week, Your rate and Results. A Progress bar and Summary panel on the right fill in the Award, Classification, Typical week and Allowance triggers as they settle.

Your job & week

The AI Assistant opens with "Tell me about your job — your role, industry and where you work — and I'll find the award that likely covers you." Type a description in the box and click Continue.

Opened from a pay guide's Open the calculator button, the calculator is already set to that award: a line under the heading reads "Set to the …" with a use a different award link, the assistant says it will work things out under that award, and the questions start at the role rather than at a description of the work.

From there the wizard asks one question at a time, each answered with a single tap. What you typed is read back above the question so you can see it was used. When a question rests on a guess, a short line explains why it is being asked. Back undoes the last answer without restarting. On the most common awards it also asks the facts that award sets its levels by, such as the vehicle you drive, a trade qualification, or how many people you are in charge of. On some awards that answer settles the level outright. "Not sure" leaves the level open. The same loop collects your typical week, your break arrangements and any allowance triggers, so those never appear as a separate table of multipliers.

When enough is settled the wizard shows a Recommended card with one level: its name, hourly rate, a plain-words summary, the reason in your own terms, and a link to Read the full definition on the Fair Work award ›. Any assumptions it had to make are listed on the card. Click That's me — continue to accept it.

Below the recommendation:

• Also possible lists the near misses, each with its rate and a Choose button. Long ladders show a workable number first with a button to show the rest.
• Check this against the award links to the award document at the Fair Work Commission and the Fair Work Ombudsman's award library.
• None of these fit — start again reopens the loop.

If nothing pointed at an award, the card reads "We couldn't work out which award covers your job." with Start again and Find my award on fairwork.gov.au ›.

Your rate

Classification Confirmed shows what was concluded before any number is produced:

• Your Base Hourly Rate, with the classification and award beside it
• For 20 hours, For 38 hours (full-time) and Overtime rate (1.5x)
• a prompt — "Does this rate match your employment contract?" — with the note that you can go back and adjust your classification if it doesn't look right

Your typical week lists the pattern the questions concluded. It is priced against the award's own rates, "weekends, overtime and breaks included." If it is wrong, go back and pick a different pattern.

When no usual pattern is available for the award, a fallback Your hours box asks for Hours in a normal week instead. Those hours are priced as ordinary time only, because penalties need to know when you worked, and the result says so.

← Change Classification returns to step 1. Check my pay › moves on.

Results

Click ✦ Calculate My Pay. The result shows Weekly pay with a line-by-line breakdown, an optional AI explanation, and What this rests on — the assumptions behind the figure.

When the week came from a described pattern rather than actual hours, the result carries the label "Estimate — based on the typical week you described, not on actual hours worked." A typical week can estimate; it can never claim a dollar underpayment. As the page puts it: "That's evidence; this is arithmetic on a pattern."

For a real-world check, the check a real payslip button takes a signed-out visitor to the free single-payslip check (when it is enabled), and a signed-in user to Payslip compliance.

Limits

The calculator is public, so it is rate-limited per IP address:

• award search and calculation: 6 requests a minute, 30 an hour and 60 a day
• the question loop: 30 requests a minute

When a limit is hit the assistant says "You're moving fast! Please wait a moment and try again."

There is also a global daily cap on AI calls across all visitors. Once it is reached the calculator does not error — it degrades to keyword matching against the award catalogue until the next day.

Free single-payslip check

Check a real payslip opens Check my payslip: am I being paid correctly?, a free check for one payslip that needs no account. Upload one payslip and FairCheck removes identifying details before AI extraction, runs the same compliance rules as the account flow, then deletes the original document as soon as processing starts. If you arrived from the calculator, a Using what you just told us panel shows the award and classification you settled on, and they are applied to the check.

What you can upload

• one file, in PDF, PNG, JPEG or TIFF (the type is checked from the file's bytes, not its name)
• up to 15MB and 12 pages
• one payslip only — a document that looks like several payslips is refused with "This looks like more than one payslip. The free check does one at a time — create an account to check a whole pay run."

Other refusals have their own plain messages: too many pages, unreadable, no pay period found, the document reader being unavailable, today's free-check limit reached, or an expired result. Each is shown under We couldn't complete that check with a Try another payslip link.

What is stored

Nothing is written to a database record. The raw upload is encrypted briefly so the background job can read it, and deleted the moment the job reads it. The result lives in an encrypted cache under an unguessable token in the result URL, and keeps pay figures and dates for one hour — but no name, address, bank details or payroll number. The identity map is discarded, so the result cannot be attached to a named employee, even after it is saved to an account. Result pages are marked not to be indexed.

While the job runs the page shows Checking your payslip — "This can take a minute. You can leave this tab open."

What the result can say

The result uses the same status banner as an account payslip — Looks right, Worth checking or Needs your input. Two things are fixed for a free check:

• It uses the modern-award floor only. As the sidebar says, "Enterprise agreements require an account and employer context."
• It sits at Tier 2 · Contextual at most, because the hours came from a pattern you described rather than evidence of hours worked. Tier 2 flags likely missing penalties, loadings, allowances, higher duties and breaks for checking; it never claims a dollar underpayment. Connecting a payroll system or supplying the hours actually worked is what lifts a result higher.

Limits

Uploads are limited per IP address to 2 an hour and 5 a day. Past that you see "That's a few checks in a short time. Please try again later, or create an account." There is also a global daily cap on the AI calls free checks may make; once reached, the check is refused with a message to try tomorrow or create an account.

Seeing the detail

The banner and the count of checks run are shown to everyone. The rule-by-rule detail sits behind Your check is ready — "Enter your email to reveal the rule-by-rule detail and save this result to an account." Fill in First name and Email address, tick the agreement to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy (which notes "this creates a FairCheck account"), and click Email my code and show the detail. The detail is revealed as soon as an address is given.

A 6-digit code is emailed, good for 10 minutes. Codes are limited to 3 per hour per email address and 3 send requests per hour per IP address. Enter it under Save this result and click Verify and save. Five wrong digits use the code up and you must request a new one; verification attempts are also limited to 8 in 15 minutes per IP address.

The response to a code request is the same whether or not an account already exists for that address.

What happens on claim

A correct code signs you in — into your existing account if the address already has one, otherwise into a new account — and files this exact result as a payslip in it, then takes you to that payslip's result page with "Saved to your account. Your result is below." Refreshing does not create a duplicate.

If your account uses two-factor authentication, an emailed code is never a substitute for the second factor: you are sent to sign in with your password, and the result is brought with you and saved once you land back on it. If you are already signed in when you open a ready result, it is saved to your account straight away without the email step.

A claimed result answers on its anonymous URL for a few minutes more, then reads "This result has already been saved to an account. Sign in there to view it."