Free 401(k) Employer Match Calculator

How an employer match is actually calculated

Two shapes cover almost every plan. The calculator handles both, and the difference between them is where most of the confusion lives.

Simple match

The employer pays a fixed rate on your contributions, up to a cap expressed as a percentage of your pay.

On “50% of the first 6%” with a $75,000 salary: contribute 6% ($4,500) and the employer adds half of it, $2,250. Contribute 3% and the employer matches half of 3%, which is $1,125 — not $2,250. The cap is a ceiling on what gets matched, not a promise of what you receive.

Tiered match

The rate steps down as your contribution rises, and the tiers stack in order.

“100% of the first 3%, then 50% of the next 2%” means the first three points of pay are matched dollar for dollar and the next two are matched at fifty cents. Contribute 5% and you collect 3% + 1% = 4% of pay. Contribute 8% and you still collect 4%, because the tiers have run out. The number this page leads with is the gap between what the formula pays at the top of its last paying tier and what it pays at your current election.

A worked example

$75,000 of eligible pay, 26 paychecks, “100% of the first 3%, 50% of the next 2%”, contributing 4% of pay:

• Tier 1: 3% of $75,000 = $2,250, matched at 100% → $2,250
• Tier 2: you are one point into a two-point tier. 1% of $75,000 = $750, matched at 50% → $375
• Match at 4% = $2,625. Your own contribution is $3,000, or $115.38 a paycheck.
• At 5%, tier 2 fills: 2% of $75,000 = $1,500 at 50% → $750. Match = $3,000.

So $375 is left on the table at 4%. Getting it costs another 1% of pay, $750 out of your own paycheck across the year. Whether that trade is right for you is your call; the arithmetic is what this page is for.

The part most match calculators skip: the true-up

The obvious way to do this is one multiplication across the whole year. Payroll does not work that way. Under the common design, a plan matches each pay period, on that pay period’s deferral — your Summary Plan Description will confirm which design yours uses. When the match is per pay period and you front-load (elect a high percentage so you hit the annual deferral limit early), the paychecks after your contributions stop have nothing for the plan to match. Unless the plan has a true-up provision, it pays nothing on them, and that money is not recoverable.

Take $120,000 of pay, 24 semi-monthly paychecks of $5,000, the 2026 deferral limit of $24,500, and the same “100% of first 3%, 50% of next 2%” formula — a maximum of 4% of pay, or $200 a paycheck.

Same contribution, same formula, same year: $2,000 versus $4,800. A $2,800 difference created entirely by timing. A plan with an annual true-up recalculates at year end against your annual deferral and funds the shortfall, so front-loading costs nothing. A plan without one does not. Your Summary Plan Description is the only document that tells you which you have.

Figures in these examples use the published limits for plan year 2026: $24,500 employee elective deferral, $72,000 combined employee and employer additions, $360,000 maximum pay a plan may count (IRS Notice 2025-67). Source: IRS — 401(k) and profit-sharing plan contribution limits. Limits shown for the stated plan year. Not investment advice — confirm your plan’s formula in your Summary Plan Description.

Two things people get wrong about the limits

The match does not count against your elective deferral limit. That limit applies only to money you defer from your own pay. Employer contributions sit outside it entirely, which is why “maxing out” and “getting the full match” are two different targets. What the match does count against is the separate limit on combined employee and employer additions. For most people that one has enormous headroom and never binds; it starts to matter when your employer also makes a profit-sharing or non-elective contribution.

A traditional 401(k) does not cut your payroll taxes. Pre-tax deferrals reduce federal income tax, and usually state income tax. They do not reduce Social Security or Medicare tax, because FICA is calculated on your gross pay before the deferral is withheld. Your Social Security earnings record is unaffected by how much you defer.

The edge cases this calculator handles

• The compensation cap. A plan may not count pay above the annual compensation limit, so above that figure the match is computed on the capped amount. Two people earning $500,000 and $360,000 collect the same match under the same formula.
• A full match you cannot actually reach. If the top of your formula’s last paying tier is worth more than the deferral limit allows you to contribute, the “maximum match” the formula implies is not attainable. The calculator reports the reachable maximum instead of the theoretical one, and says so.
• A trailing tier that pays nothing. “100% of the first 3%, then nothing on the next 3%” has a full-match point of 3%, not 6%. Contributing into an unmatched tier adds no employer money.
• Catch-up contributions. They raise your deferral limit, which changes when you would hit it and therefore how much match a per-paycheck plan funds. They are also excluded from the combined employee-and-employer limit, which the calculator accounts for.
• Vesting. Your own contributions are always 100% yours. Employer money vests on the plan’s schedule, commonly a two- or three-year cliff or graded steps. Unvested match is forfeited if you leave, so the vested figure and the match figure are not the same number.

What this deliberately does not model

No investment return, and that is on purpose. A retirement projection needs an assumed rate of return, and the assumption moves the headline number far more than the arithmetic does. This page stops where the arithmetic stops.

It also does not model income tax, profit-sharing or non-elective contributions, after-tax contributions, bonuses and commissions, mid-year changes to your election or your pay, plan eligibility and entry dates, last-day-of-year or hours-worked requirements, loans, forfeiture restoration, refunds from failed nondiscrimination testing, or holding more than one job in a year. When you are weighing a match against everything else in an offer, put the numbers side by side in the job offer comparison calculator, and check what a raise does to your contribution in the pay raise calculator.