Café staff wage cost calculator
Put in your roster and see what a week of staff really costs once casual loading, weekend rates, public holidays and super are added, and how that compares with your sales. Starts from award minimum rates for 1 July 2026, and every rate can be changed.
An estimate, not a pay rate. The defaults are award minimums from 1 July 2026. What you must pay depends on each person’s award, classification, age and hours. Check every employee in the Fair Work Pay Calculator or the pay guide for their award before you rely on these figures.
Which award covers your staff?
Most cafés are under one of these two. It depends on whether customers mainly eat in or take away.
Restaurant Industry Award [MA000119]. Cafés where customers mainly eat and drink on the premises. A café run by a hotel or resort is usually under the Hospitality Award instead: use either preset and change the rates to match its pay guide.
Your weekly roster
One card per person, with the hours they work in a normal week. Tap a card to change it. The example is a small café; make it yours.
More options12% super, open 8 public holidays, the award’s penalty rates.
Penalty rates
As a % of the base rate, from the Restaurant Industry Award for 1 July 2026. The casual column already includes the 25% casual loading, the way the award’s own table shows it. Evening work after 10pm, overtime and allowances are not included.
Monday to Friday
Saturday
Sunday (Introductory to Level 2)
Sunday (Level 3 to Level 6)
Public holiday
Weekly labour cost
$3,583
Below the ATO range
29.9% of $12,000 weekly sales with super, for 102 rostered hours.
Where the week’s wage bill lands
Each column is a kind of day, split by person, with super. Public holidays show what they add over a normal weekday, spread across the year.
- 1. Head barista
- 2. Barista
- 3. Weekend floor
- 4. Kitchen hand
Does the café break even with this roster?
Take the roster's cost into the break-even calculator as your staff wages, then add rent and the rest.
Staff wages a month, with super
$15,527
Permanent staff also get paid annual leave and personal leave. When they take it and someone covers their shifts, you pay for both, which this weekly figure doesn’t show. Junior rates are from the award's table; a junior serving alcohol is paid the adult rate.
How to use it
- 01Pick the awardThe Restaurant Award covers cafés where people mainly eat in; the Fast Food Award covers cafés where most orders go out the door. It sets the base rates, penalty rates and junior percentages.
- 02Add each personTap a card to set their employment type, classification and age; the award minimum fills in. If you pay more, type the real rate over it. Then their hours in a normal week: weekdays, Saturday, Sunday, and each public holiday.
- 03Add your salesA typical week's sales before GST, to see what share the roster takes. Super (12% in 2026–27), workers compensation as an on-cost, and the public holidays you open are under More options.
- 04Check the penalty ratesThey come from the award and sit under More options, where you can see or change them. If your staff are on an enterprise agreement or a different award, change them to match.
How to read the answer
The example roster is a small eat-in café under the Restaurant Award: a full-time head barista at Level 3 (30 weekday hours and 8 on Saturday), a casual barista and a casual 19-year-old on the floor, both at Level 2 and both working weekends, and a part-time kitchen hand at Level 1 doing 20 weekday hours.
- 10 weekday hours at $33.85 (125% of $27.08)
- $338.50
- 7 Saturday hours at $40.62 (150%)
- $284.34
- 7 Sunday hours at $40.62 (150%)
- $284.34
- Wages for all four
- $3,199.34
- Super at 12%
- $383.92
That's 29.9% of $12,000 in weekly sales with super, or 26.7% in wages alone.
- 52 normal weeks
- $186,330
- Public holidays: 8 days × 7 hours × $27.08 × (250% − 125%), plus super
- $2,123
The casual barista works each of 8 public holidays at 250% instead of 125%; only the difference is extra, because the holiday replaces a normal day.
Against the ATO. $12,000 a week is $624,000 a year, and coffee shops turning over more than $600,000 pay 27% to 35% of turnover in wages. The ATO’s labour figure is salary and wages, not super, so the fair comparison is the 26.7%: just under the range. Below the range isn’t a problem in itself, but if you work in the café unpaid, your unpaid hours may be part of the reason.
The “weekend penalty rates add” line is what Saturdays and Sundays cost over the same hours on a weekday: $246 a week here, with super. If it is a big number, it is the first place to look when the roster is too expensive: a permanent employee on a Saturday costs 125% of their rate, a casual 150%. The chart under the calculator shows where each day’s money goes, and the notes under it work through the roster for you, such as what a steady casual would cost part-time.
What it leaves out: overtime, evening work after 10pm, allowances (uniforms, split shifts, first aid), paid leave cover, and anything your own enterprise agreement says. For the full picture of hiring, award classifications and payroll, read hiring and paying café staff. To see whether the café covers this roster, the break-even calculator takes the monthly figure straight from the tool.
Where the default rates come from
Base rates, junior percentages and penalty rates were read from the award text published by the Fair Work Commission, for the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026, and checked on 28 October 2026. Award minimums change every July after the Annual Wage Review, and sometimes in between. Super is the 12% Super Guarantee. The labour benchmark is the ATO’s small business benchmark for coffee shops, from 2023–24 tax returns; the ATO works it out from total salary and wage expenses, which leave super out.
Casuals are paid a loading instead of most paid leave, while full-time and part-time employees get paid leave and a firm commitment to ongoing work (Fair Work Ombudsman). So a steady casual on the higher rate isn’t simply dearer or cheaper than a part-timer: they’re different arrangements.
Frequently asked questions
An estimate for planning, not payroll or legal advice. It uses award minimums for the classifications shown and does not know your employees’ real duties, qualifications, agreements or hours. Before you set anyone’s pay, check their award, classification and age in the Fair Work Pay Calculator, or ask Fair Work (13 13 94), your accountant or an employer association. Underpaying staff is expensive to fix and, if deliberate, can be a crime.
Sources for the rates and benchmarks
10 sources, 10 official
- 1Restaurant Industry Award 2020 [MA000119], clauses 11, 18 and 24 (Fair Work Commission)awards.fairwork.gov.au · official source
- 2Fast Food Industry Award 2020 [MA000003], clauses 11, 15 and 21 (Fair Work Commission)awards.fairwork.gov.au · official source
- 3Minimum wages increase from 1 July 2026 (Fair Work Ombudsman)fairwork.gov.au · official source
- 4Pay guides and the Pay Calculator (Fair Work Ombudsman)fairwork.gov.au · official source
- 5Payday Super for employers (ATO)ato.gov.au · official source
- 6Small business benchmarks: coffee shops (ATO)ato.gov.au · official source
- 7Junior wage changes to the Retail, Fast Food and Pharmacy Awards (Fair Work Ombudsman)fairwork.gov.au · official source
- 8Casual employees: casual loading and leave (Fair Work Ombudsman)fairwork.gov.au · official source
Show all 10 sourcesShow fewer
- 9How we calculate benchmark ratios: labour to turnover (ATO)ato.gov.au · official source
- 10P15 Total salary and wage expenses: what to include and exclude (ATO)ato.gov.au · official source