Paste your CTC (as gross for tax), your rent, and a lifestyle tier — we estimate in-hand after tax/PF, stack a transparent month of non-rent spend, and show what's left to save. Built for offers and city trade-offs; not a substitute for your bank statement or tax filing.
Reviewed July 2026 · FY 2026–27 (AY 2027–28) tax slabs in engine · Methodology
This is a decision assistant: compare whether an offer leaves meaningful savings after a transparent spend model. Defaults are visible and editable so nothing feels like a black box.
CTC is a headline; rent is usually the villain in Indian metros. This tool doesn't judge your choices — it shows, under editable defaults, whether there's any cushion left after tax/PF and a lifestyle-shaped month. If the verdict feels harsh, the fix is often ₹5–15k rent or one lifestyle tier, not a lecture.
It works best when you're comparing two offers, two cities, or "can I afford this lease?" It does not replace a budget with your actual card statements — override every expense line until it feels like your life, not ours.
Same Salary Reality Check engine, fixed rent + lifestyle story per page — jump in and edit the numbers.
Example: CTC ₹18,00,000/year, metro, rent ₹28,000/month, moderate lifestyle, new regime, Basic+DA 45% of gross. The tool estimates in-hand via the same engine as CTC→in-hand, then adds non-rent spend (groceries, commute, utilities, discretionary). Edit any line to mirror your budget — the story updates immediately.
Next steps
Refine or compare offers with the same methodology.
No. In-hand is modeled from CTC; expenses are bands you can override. Use it to compare scenarios and city/rent trade-offs.
Non-rent defaults scale with the tier you pick — groceries, commute, utilities, and discretionary all move together in the table until you edit them.
Most salary planning starts with a simple calculation: in-hand minus rent equals savings. In practice, the number left after rent is not your savings — it is your budget for all other spending: groceries, transport, utilities, subscriptions, personal care, social expenses, and emergency buffers. What remains after all of that is actual discretionary savings. This tool adds a realistic spending tier between in-hand and rent to give you that clearer picture.
The spending tier categories in the calculator (basic, moderate, premium) represent real-world ranges observed across Indian cities and income levels. They are not exact — your specific lifestyle will differ — but they give you a starting structure. In many Indian metros, a "moderate" lifestyle for a single professional includes meals (home-cooked and eating out), transport (auto, metro, occasional ride-hail), personal care, and phone/internet. The "premium" tier adds higher discretionary spend, more frequent dining out, gym memberships, and similar costs.
City differences are real and large. The same ₹12 LPA gross in Hyderabad leaves meaningfully more discretionary income than in Mumbai, primarily because rent is a fixed rupee cost, not a percentage of income. A 2BHK in central Mumbai at ₹45,000/month consumes a much larger fraction of in-hand than a comparable unit in Pune at ₹18,000/month. This calculator does not hardcode city benchmarks — it asks for your actual rent, which makes the output more useful than generic "cost of living" comparisons.
A practical savings target: financial planners in India commonly suggest saving 20–30% of take-home pay for medium-term goals, and additional amounts for retirement beyond EPF. At lower income levels (under ₹10 LPA gross), hitting 20% savings while living independently in a metro is genuinely hard, not a personal failure. This tool helps you see exactly why — and which lever (rent, lifestyle tier, income) moves the needle most for your specific situation.
Two employees both earning ₹15 LPA can have wildly different savings outcomes. The employee in Delhi paying ₹25,000/month rent, EMI on a two-wheeler, and supporting family saves perhaps ₹5,000/month. The employee in Jaipur living at home saves ₹35,000/month. Their incomes are identical; their financial trajectories are not.
The savings rate — what fraction of net in-hand you actually save or invest each month — is a better indicator of financial health than the salary figure itself. Personal finance practitioners typically use 20% of net income as a benchmark for adequate savings. Below 10%, emergency fund and wealth accumulation are both compromised. Above 30%, you are likely on track to build meaningful assets over a 10-year horizon.
In our experience of building this calculator and reading how Indian salaried employees actually budget, three variables explain most of the variance in savings outcomes at any given income level:
The tool uses a three-tier city classification when estimating discretionary expenses:
A ₹10 LPA salary in a Tier 2 city often provides more financial breathing room than ₹15 LPA in Mumbai once rent, commute, and basic lifestyle costs are accounted for.