Nobody ordered the same amount. Split it fairly anyway.

How is this different from a regular tip calculator?

A standard tip calculator divides one bill evenly by the number of people — fine when everyone ordered about the same. This tool is for when people ordered different amounts: enter what each person's items actually cost, and tax and tip get distributed proportionally to how much each person spent, not split evenly.

Why isn't tax and tip just split evenly among everyone?

Splitting tax and tip evenly means someone who ordered a side salad subsidizes someone else's steak and cocktails. Proportional splitting — where each person pays tax and tip based on their own share of the subtotal — is generally considered the fairer approach when orders are uneven, which is why this calculator does it that way rather than dividing everything by headcount.

What if we want to split some shared items evenly and other items individually?

Add the shared item's cost split evenly into each relevant person's amount before entering it here — for example, a $30 appetizer split three ways adds $10 to each of those three people's subtotal. This calculator works from whatever final subtotal you assign each person, however you've already decided to divide shared items.

Worked example: three people order $25, $40, and $15 of food (a $80 subtotal), with 8% tax and 18% tip: the total bill is $100.80, and — because tax and tip scale with each person's share — they owe $31.50, $50.40, and $18.90 respectively, in proportion to what they ordered.