Working out a tip and splitting a bill shouldn't require passing your phone around the table. There's a simple mental trick, and for the fiddly split-between-five-people part, a calculator saves the arguments.
The quick mental method
The anchor is 10%: just move the decimal point one place. On a $60 bill, 10% is $6. From there, everything else is easy — halve it for 5% ($3), so 15% is $9, and double the 10% for 20% ($12). You can hit any common tip in your head from that one starting point.
How much is customary?
This varies enormously by country, and that's the honest answer — tipping is generous and expected in some places, unusual or built into the price in others. The arithmetic is universal; the right percentage is local custom. If you're travelling, it's worth checking what's normal where you are rather than assuming your home country's norm.
Splitting the bill
Splitting is where the mental maths breaks down — dividing a total plus tip between an odd number of people, especially with different orders, is exactly the kind of thing a calculator is for. Enter the bill, the tip, and the number of people, and it hands you the per-person amount cleanly.
- Open the Tip Calculator and enter the bill.
- Choose a tip percentage.
- Enter how many people are splitting it, and read the per-person total.
It all runs in your browser — no app to install, nothing sent anywhere, ready the moment the bill arrives.