Free salary comparison tool

Where does your salary rank in South Africa?

Enter your gross salary and see where it sits compared with people who have a job or all working-age adults in South Africa.

What you get

  • Compare with employed people or all adults
  • Plain-language ranking and middle-income context
  • Estimated annual income-tax comparison
  • Private, browser-only calculation

From

Free

Turnaround

Instant

For

South African employees, employers and job seekers

Your gross salary

Where do you sit?

Enter what you earn before PAYE, UIF, pension and other deductions.

R

You are around the

Top 21%

of people with a job in South Africa, on R30 000 a month.

Middle
You
R5k/monthR30k/monthR200k/month

13 264 723

South Africans with a job earn less than you.

Picture 100 South Africans. Gold squares earn less than you. The outlined square is you.

You are in the top 25 out of every 100 — well above the middle, even if it does not always feel like it.

You earn more than the middle worker by

R21 821 a month

Half of everyone with a job earns less than R8 179 a month.

Estimated income tax you pay in a year

R56 172

That is 15.6 cents of every rand you earn.

Estimated income tax the middle worker pays

R0

They earn too little to pay any income tax at all.

To move up a level, you would need

R50 363 a month

That would put you in the top 10%.

Where the numbers come from

Useful context, with honest limits.

How the ranking works

Treasury and SARS publish the number of assessed taxpayers in broad income bands. We estimate how many people earn more than the salary entered and turn that into a position out of 100.

Who you are compared with

Stats SA counted 16 739 000 employed people out of 42 310 000 working-age adults in Q2 2026. The all-adults option also includes unemployed people and those outside the labour force.

Where the estimate gets rough

The income-band data starts around the income-tax threshold. Results below that point and salaries between published bands are estimated, not directly measured.

What the tax figure includes

The tax estimate uses the 2026/27 SARS brackets and primary rebate. It excludes medical credits, retirement contributions and UIF, so it is a rough comparison rather than a payslip.

Your salary stays with you

Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved. The comparison runs only in your browser.

Earning it is one thing. Keeping it is another.

Let Smartbook handle the accounting, payroll and SARS admin.

Fixed monthly support for South African businesses and the people who run them.

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