How to split a restaurant bill
The complete method: share tax and tip proportionally, tip on the pre-tax subtotal, and tell the server before you order rather than after.
Guides
How to split every kind of bill
Most bills divide fine. These are the ones that do not: the check where one person ordered twice as much as everyone else, the delivery order with $15 of fees on it, the grocery basket where half the items are taxed and half are not. Each guide answers the question properly, with the arithmetic worked through — including the cases where the right answer is to do it in your head and not use an app at all.
The basics
Split a bill by item
The arithmetic worked all the way through, and why splitting evenly costs whoever ordered the salad about $12 on a normal check.
Tip calculator
A free calculator that tips on the pre-tax subtotal and tells you who carries the leftover cent instead of quietly dropping it.
Quick split — no sign-up
Scan a receipt, add some names, get the numbers. No email and no password; a guest account in your browser is all it needs.
Delivery and online orders
Split a DoorDash order
DoorDash cannot split one order across several cards. Here is the fix, including how to divide the delivery fee, service fee and tip fairly.
Split an Uber Eats order
Uber Eats only splits before you order, and every guest needs their own account. How to split one that has already been paid for.
Split a Walmart or Instacart order
No paper receipt to photograph. Find the PDF in your purchase history instead — fees, tip and substitutions included.
Shopping and shared homes
Split a grocery bill
The receipt zero-rates the food and taxes the beer. Spreading one average tax across the basket overcharges whoever bought vegetables.
Split groceries with roommates
Split the shared basics, claim your own items, off one receipt — and why the even split stops working around month three.
Switching apps
Coming from Splitwise
A point-by-point comparison, including the cases where Splitwise is genuinely still the better tool.
Hit the Splitwise daily limit?
What the cap is, the three real ways around it, and how to get unstuck in the next two minutes.
The rule underneath all of them
Every guide here is the same idea applied to a different receipt: anything pooled should be shared in proportion to what each person ordered, not divided per head. Tax, tip, delivery fees, service fees — all of it. Dividing pooled charges evenly is the shortcut everybody takes, and it always moves money in the same direction, from whoever ordered least to whoever ordered most.
Once, it is pennies and not worth mentioning. With the same people every week, it is a standing arrangement that nobody agreed to and nobody wants to be the one to raise.
Or just try it on a real receipt
Two free bills as a guest. The people you split with never need an account.
Split a bill