Tip screen calculator

Methodology

This tool runs the Kindhow Scale, version 1.0, in its list form — the same shape as the hotel tipping list and the holiday tipping list, one row per thing that happened rather than one baseline and a stack of adjustments. What is new here is that it prices what was asked of you separately from what is owed, and prints the gap.

The formula

for each thing that happened:

  counter order    Emily Post: "no obligation"        → $0
  counter meal       + "a little something extra"     → $1   (OURS)
  takeout          Emily Post: "no obligation"        → $0
                     + "10% for extra service
                        (curb delivery)"              → 10%
  host / maitre d' Emily Post: "no obligation"        → $0
                     + "$10-$20 for going above
                        and beyond"                   → their band

  taxi / rideshare 15-20% of the fare, minimally $1
                     + $2 for the first bag
                     + $1 each bag after   (OURS — their row stops at one)
  valet            $2-$5, per time the car comes back
  skycap           $2 first bag + $1 each after   exact, no judgment
  restroom         $0.50-$3, per visit

  each figure rounded to a dollar, then stepped back inside the band
  its source published — or, where no whole dollar fits in that band,
  tagged house judgment instead

  ─────────────
  = what the published rules come to

  the screen's % × (the rows a screen appears on)
  − the MOST any published guide supports on those same rows
  = what the screen is asking for beyond anybody's published figure

  + a $0 line for the highlighted button itself
    (29 CFR 531.52: "whether a tip is to be given, and its amount,
     are matters determined solely by the customer")

Eight situations, eight different units

“How much should I tip?” has no single answer at a counter for the same reason it has none at a hotel: no two of these rows count the same thing. A valet tip is per time the car comes back. A skycap is per bag. A counter order is per order, and the published figure for it is zero. The middle column below is the publication’s own wording; the last is what this tool computes for the ordinary version of that row.

The skycap row is one of the very few lines on this site with no judgment of ours in it whatsoever. Emily Post prints exact dollars there rather than a range — $2 for the first bag, $1 for each one after — so there is no position for us to pick and nothing to disclose.

Where the published answer is nothing

Three of the eight rows above are published zeroes, and they are the three the screen asks about hardest. Emily Post’s tip-jar row is “no obligation”. Their take-out row is “no obligation”. Their host row says there is “no obligation for greeting you and showing you to your table”. Each of those rows renders at $0 and stays on the ledger, because a zero you can see, with the sentence it came from attached, is a different thing from a row that quietly is not there.

Each of those rows also has a tick for the exception the same source publishes. Somebody walked your takeout to the kerb: that is their 10%. The host found you a table on a full night: that is their $10–$20. The barista did something beyond handing over what you ordered: Emily Post says tip “occasionally” and publishes no figure, so the $1 this tool adds is ours and is tagged as ours. That is the one line in the whole tool where a dollar figure is house judgment, and it is deliberately a small one.

What the screen is compared against

The screen’s suggestion is applied to the rows a screen actually appears on — the counter order, the counter meal, the takeout, the ride — and never to the valet or the skycap, who are not holding an iPad. It is then compared with the most any published guide supports on those same rows, not with the figure this tool chose. That is deliberately generous to the screen: the top of every range, plus the house-judgment dollar, plus every bag. If a gap survives that, it is a real gap and not an artefact of where we decided to sit inside a band.

Which is why this tool sometimes takes the screen’s side. A 20% button on a taxi fare is inside Emily Post’s published 15–20% and the result says so in plain words. A calculator that concluded “the screen is always wrong” would be an opinion with arithmetic bolted on.

Who decides — the one legal line in the tool

Whenever a screen is involved, the ledger carries an extra $0 line naming the highlighted button. It exists because the question underneath “is 25% too much” is really “am I allowed to say no”, and that one has a published answer. 29 CFR 531.52 defines a tip as “a sum presented by a customer as a gift or gratuity in recognition of some service performed for the customer”, and states that “whether a tip is to be given, and its amount, are matters determined solely by the customer.”

A pre-selected default is a suggestion the business made before you decided anything, which is the opposite of that sentence. It is not a charge, and a mandatory charge would not be a tip at all — that distinction is the one the bill split calculator uses on automatic gratuities and the salon tip calculator uses on service fees. Nothing here is legal advice; the regulation is quoted to explain what a tip is, not to tell anybody how to comply with it.

The second source, and why it is a share of people

Every other tool on this site cites publications that print prices. This one adds a source that prints how many people actually tip, which turns out to be the more useful number when the question is whether you are the odd one out. Pew Research Center surveyed 11,945 US adults between 7–27 August 2023 and published on 9 November 2023.

Two of those rows are the whole argument of this page. The etiquette guide and the survey were produced by unrelated organisations working from opposite directions — one publishes what is owed, the other measures what happens — and on the counter they agree. Pew also found that 72% of adults say tipping is expected in more places than it was five years ago, while only about a third find it easy to know whether (34%) or how much (33%) to tip. That gap is the reason this tool exists.

Rounding, and the one place a band has no whole dollar

Figures here are whole dollars: this is money handed over at a counter, and the site’s usual $5 step would be a large opinion on a $2 tip. Every rounded figure is then stepped back inside the range its source published, so rounding can never push a line out of the band that makes it sourced.

One case defeats that, and the tool says so instead of hiding it. On a short fare there may be no whole dollar between 15% and 20% at all — on a $7 ride the band is $1.05 to $1.40. When that happens the line rounds to the nearest dollar and stops calling itself sourced, because at that point the figure is ours. Emily Post’s own stated minimum of $1 covers the shortest fares, and that one stays sourced, because the floor is theirs.

What this tool will not do

• It will not tell you not to tip. A published “no obligation” is a fact about what is owed, not advice about what to do. Plenty of people tip at a counter knowing that, and the tick boxes are there for it.
• It has no regional adjustment. The percentage rows are already a share of a regional price, and nudging the dollar rows alone for a fifth of a dollar would make the ledger inconsistent with itself. Same refusal as the salon tip calculator.
• It does not cover the sit-down check. A restaurant bill, its pre-tax rule and its automatic gratuity belong to the bill split calculator; food brought to your door belongs to the delivery tip calculator; a hotel’s staff to the hotel tipping calculator. This one is the counter, the kerb and the car door.
• It cannot see where your tip goes. Whether a counter tip is pooled, split, or reaches the person who served you is a matter of that employer’s arrangements, and no published figure settles it.
• It is US-only. These are American figures and an American regulation. Tipping elsewhere is frequently different and sometimes unwelcome — that one is the tipping abroad calculator.

Sources

• The Emily Post Institute — General Tipping Guide — every published figure and every published zero in the table above: the tip-jar row, the take-out row, the host row, the taxi percentage and its minimum, the valet range, the skycap dollars and the restroom attendant range.
• Pew Research Center — What services do Americans tip for, and how much? — the share of Americans who always or often tip in each of seven settings.
• Pew Research Center — Tipping Culture in America: Public Sees a Changed Landscape (November 2023) — 11,945 US adults, fielded 7–27 August 2023: the 72% who say tipping is expected in more places than five years ago, and the 40% who oppose businesses suggesting amounts.
• 29 CFR 531.52 — General restrictions on an employer's use of its employees' tips — the definition of a tip, and the sentence putting the decision with the customer.

Informational only, not professional advice. The Kindhow Scale is a published model, not a standard, and the lines marked house judgment are our reasoning and nothing more. Nothing here is legal advice: 29 CFR 531.52 is quoted to explain what a tip is, not to tell you or any business how to comply with it. Last reviewed: August 2026. Scale version 1.0. Figures that come from a publication are re-checked against their source on a monthly cycle; when one moves, the version number moves with it.