CTC calculator: build the structure
For employers designing an offer: enter a target CTC and shape the structure (basic, HRA, PF, gratuity, balance allowance) with the wage-definition check and resulting in-hand shown live. Decoding an offer you received instead? That is the salary calculator's job.
Design the offer
The structure it produces
In-hand shown before income-tax TDS (regime- and declaration-dependent; see the TDS calculator). Professional tax assumed at ₹200/month; adjust for your state.
Designing a structure that survives 2026
Three constraints shape a modern Indian salary structure. The Code on Wages' definition expects basic plus DA to form at least half of remuneration for computation purposes: the builder above flags composition that falls short, because the excess of exclusions counts back as wages anyway. PF rides the basic (on the ₹15,000 ceiling or actuals, your establishment's declared choice), so basic size prices your statutory outflow. And gratuity accrues at roughly 4.81% of basic annually, a real cost many CTC sheets forget until an auditor reprices it. The honest design pattern: 45–50% basic, HRA at half of basic, the balance as special allowance, and identical templates per level rather than per-person deals.
The deeper treatment of each component is in the salary structure guide, and once designed, a structure becomes a declared template that PeopleDeck's payroll engine applies to every payslip with effect-dated revisions.
A worked example
Target CTC ₹8,00,000 at 45% basic: basic ₹30,000 a month, HRA ₹15,000, employer PF ₹1,800 (ceiling), gratuity accrual ₹1,443 monthly inside the CTC, and the special allowance absorbs the ₹15,190 balance, giving monthly gross ₹63,467, in-hand before tax about ₹61,467. Drop basic to 30% and the builder flags the wage-definition risk while the gratuity line shrinks, showing exactly what the low-basic design was buying, and why it no longer works.
Figures are illustrative; your components, state and statutory elections will differ.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from the salary calculator?
Direction: the salary calculator decodes an offer you received; this one builds the structure from a target CTC: the employer's side of the same arithmetic, with the Code on Wages composition check and gratuity accrual included.
What basic percentage should I set?
45–50% of CTC is the modern compliant band: the Code on Wages' definition effectively counts exclusions beyond half of remuneration back into wages anyway, so lower basics buy nothing but audit questions. The builder flags composition that falls short.
Why include gratuity accrual in CTC?
Because it is a real cost — roughly 4.81% of basic annually, that vests as an employee entitlement at five years. Counting it keeps the CTC honest; the toggle exists because some establishments quote it separately.
Does the builder handle variable pay?
Keep variable out of the target CTC you enter and quote it as a separate at-target line — mixing it into the fixed structure is how offers become disputes. The structure guide covers the fixed/variable discipline.
Can I use this structure directly in payroll?
That is the intended path: the percentages you settle here become a structure template in PeopleDeck, applied to every payslip with effect-dated revisions — designed once, computed monthly.
Design once. Apply every month.
Structures become templates in PeopleDeck: offers, payslips and revisions from one declaration.
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