Bill Splitter: Split Expenses with Friends
Itemised restaurant bills and group trip expenses, settled to the cent.
Use via API
Split a restaurant bill item by item (tax and tip shared in proportion to what each person ate, to the cent) or settle group trip expenses with the fewest payments. Send JSON, get JSON back.
POST https://pithlab.com/api/v1/tools/bill-splitter
curl https://pithlab.com/api/v1/tools/bill-splitter \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $PITHLAB_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"mode":"restaurant","people":"Alice, Bob, Cara","items":"[{\"name\":\"Pizza\",\"price\":18},{\"name\":\"Pasta\",\"price\":14.5,\"sharedBy\":[\"Alice\"]},{\"name\":\"Salad\",\"price\":9.25,\"sharedBy\":[\"Bob\"]},{\"name\":\"Wine\",\"price\":24,\"sharedBy\":[\"Alice\",\"Cara\"]}]","tax":8,"tip":15}'About the Bill Splitter
Split a restaurant bill item by item with tax and tip shared fairly to the cent, or settle trip expenses with the fewest payments. Share the result as a link.
How to use the Bill Splitter
- Choose Restaurant bill to split a receipt, or Trip expenses to settle up after a holiday or shared house costs.
- Add everyone's names. For a bill, enter each item and tick who shared it (tick nobody to share it with everyone), then the tax and tip. For a trip, enter each expense, who paid it and who it was for.
- Read each person's share or the list of payments that settles everything, then copy the summary or a share link that reopens the same split.
Examples
Input
Pizza 18.00 (everyone), Pasta 14.50 (Alice), Salad 9.25 (Bob), Wine 24.00 (Alice, Cara)
Output
Alice: 39.97 (items 32.50 + tax 2.60 + tip 4.87) Bob: 18.76 (items 15.25 + tax 1.22 + tip 2.29) Cara: 22.14 (items 18.00 + tax 1.44 + tip 2.70) Total: 80.87 (items 65.75 + tax 5.26 + tip 9.86)
Input
Alice paid hotel 300 (everyone), Bob paid fuel 90 (everyone), Cara paid dinner 60 (Alice, Cara)
Output
Cara pays Alice 100.00 Bob pays Alice 40.00
Frequently asked questions
How are tax and tip shared?
In proportion to what each person ordered. If your items are 40% of the food, you pay 40% of the tax and tip. That is fairer than an equal split when one person orders far more than the others.
Why does one person pay a cent more than another for a shared item?
10.00 split three ways can't be exactly 3.33 each, so one person pays 3.34. The calculator hands out leftover cents using the largest-remainder method, so the shares always add up to exactly the bill.
How are trip payments worked out?
Each person's balance is what they paid minus their share. The person who owes most pays the person who is owed most, and so on until everyone is even. This takes at most one fewer payment than there are people, and nobody both pays and receives.
Is my data uploaded when I share a link?
No. The names and amounts are packed into the part of the link after the #, which browsers never send to a server. Anyone you send the link to can open it and see the same split.