Who's owed what — free group expense calculator

Most shared costs are split evenly. When you add an expense here it starts out split evenly across everyone on your list, and you can uncheck anyone who was not there. If one person skipped the dinner, the bill is divided across whoever is left. Each person's share shows beside their name before you save, so you can see what you are about to add.

Sometimes the shares are not equal, because one person ordered the steak and another had a salad. Choose “Exact” in the Split row and type what each person's share of that expense came to. The amounts have to add up to the total before the expense will save, and the page tells you how far off you are until they do.

A bill rarely divides into whole cents. When it will not, the leftover cents are handed out one at a time, starting with the first people in your list among those sharing the expense, so the split always adds up to the bill exactly. Nobody's share is rounded away and no cent goes missing.

Sometimes two people cover one thing between them, such as a grocery run where one person paid for the food and another paid for the drinks. Switch the Who paid row to “Several people” and type what each of them paid. Those amounts have to add up to the total before the expense will save, and the page shows how much is still unaccounted for.

Everyone's share of that expense is then divided among the people who paid, in proportion to what each of them paid. If one person covered most of the bill, most of what the others owe for it goes to that person, and the rest goes to whoever covered the remainder. You do not have to work out which payer each person is paying back. The page does it.

Once the expenses are in, the Who's owed what section lists who pays whom. It adds up what each person paid and what each person's shares came to, then works out a single figure between each pair of people who shared an expense. That way you settle up once with each person instead of once per expense.

The page follows one rule: every payment on the list is between two people who actually shared costs. It never invents a payment between two people who shared nothing. It does not rearrange who pays whom to shave payments off the list, so you may see a few more payments than a clever shortcut would give, but each one has a reason you can point to.

When you are done, tap “Copy” under Text to paste and drop the result into your group chat. Each line says who pays whom and how much, using the same cents you typed in. Everything you type stays on the device you are using and is never sent anywhere, so you can come back later and pick up where you left off, or tap “Delete everything” when you want a clean slate.