4-Day Workweek Cost Calculator
Employer cost/savings from a 4-day workweek — commute, office overhead, and a user-adjustable productivity assumption.
🔒 Runs entirely in your browser — nothing here is ever uploaded
About the 4-Day Workweek Cost Calculator
Estimates an employer's real cost/savings tradeoff from moving a team to a 4-day compressed workweek: commute cost and time saved, office overhead reduction, and a user-adjustable — explicitly not guaranteed — productivity/output assumption.
- Enter employee count and average salary.
- Enter typical commute cost and round-trip commute time per employee per day.
- Enter per-employee monthly office overhead and the share of it actually avoided by one fewer office day.
- Set your own productivity/output change assumption — 0% if you don't want to assume any change.
50 employees, $70,000 avg salary, $12/day commute cost, 50-min daily round-trip commute, $300/employee/month overhead with 15% actually avoided, 0% productivity change, 48 work weeks: commute savings $28,800, overhead savings $27,000, productivity value $0 → total estimated annual impact $55,800 ($1,116/employee), plus about 2,000 total employee commute-hours saved per year.
Commute and overhead figures are mechanical estimates from your own inputs. The productivity assumption is the most uncertain part of this model — published trials (the UK's 2022 4 Day Week pilot, Microsoft Japan's 2019 trial) reported steady-to-improved output at many participating employers, but results vary significantly by role, industry, and rollout, and are not guaranteed for any given organization. This tool assumes pay is unchanged while scheduled days drop (the common '100-80-100' model) and does not model revenue effects, client-coverage gaps, or one-time transition costs.
- • Try the productivity field at both 0% and a modest negative value (e.g. -5%) to see a conservative-to-optimistic range rather than relying on one number.
- • Overhead 'share avoided' should usually be well under 100% — rent and base utility contracts rarely shrink just because the office is emptier one day a week.
- • Model your team's actual commute costs (transit passes, parking, mileage) rather than a national average for a more accurate estimate.
- APA Monitor on Psychology — The rise of the 4-day workweek — accessed 2026-08-31
- Emburse — How much a 4-day work week saves on business expenses — accessed 2026-08-31
Illustrative estimate only, not financial or tax advice. Verify figures with a licensed adviser or your local tax authority.