Grant Budget Calculator
Enter personnel with fringe, equipment, travel, supplies, subawards and other costs, set your own indirect rate and base, and get a year-by-year grant budget with salary escalation, the 2 CFR 200.1 modified total direct cost (MTDC) rules applied for you, and a table to copy or download. It runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded. Free, no sign-up.
The award
1 to 10.
The default for every person; a fourth field on a line overrides it.
Applied from year 2 and compounded. Use your institution's policy.
Applied to travel, supplies, participant support and the costs outside the base. Many funders allow none; leave 0 unless your call lets you inflate.
Under 2 CFR 200.1 the MTDC base leaves out equipment, participant support, tuition remission, scholarships and fellowships, rental costs, patient care, capital expenditures, and the part of each subaward above the threshold.
Enter the rate in your institution's current agreement or your sponsor's rules. This tool does not know any institution's rate.
The lesser of your institution's capitalization level and $10,000 (2 CFR 200.1, from 2024). Items below it are counted as supplies.
$50,000 for each subaward over the life of the award (2 CFR 200.1, from 2024).
Budget lines
One item per line. Separate fields with commas, tabs, semicolons or pipes, and write amounts without thousands separators (62000, not 62,000). The last field is optional: the year (2) or years (1-3) the item applies to; leave it out for every year.
Budget
Add budget lines to see the multi-year budget.
Amounts are rounded to whole dollars line by line, as most budget forms require, so the columns add up exactly.
How to Use the Grant Budget Calculator
- 1. Set the award. Choose the project length, the annual salary increase, the default fringe rate, and whether your indirect rate applies to MTDC or to total direct costs. Type your own indirect rate; the tool does not look one up.
- 2. Add budget lines. One item per line: personnel with salary and effort, equipment with cost and purchase year, then travel, supplies, subawards, participant support and costs outside the base. Add a year or a span (2 or 1-3) to limit a line to certain years.
- 3. Check what was read. Under each box the tool says how many lines it understood and quotes any it could not, so a typo never silently drops a cost.
- 4. Read the budget. The table shows each line by year, the direct total, the base the indirect rate is charged on, the indirect costs, and the total request. Copy it into a spreadsheet or download a CSV.
What Is in the MTDC Base
Indirect costs are usually a percentage of a base, and the base is rarely all of your direct costs. Under the Uniform Guidance, 2 CFR 200.1, modified total direct costs (MTDC) are all direct salaries and wages, applicable fringe benefits, materials and supplies, services, travel, and up to the first $50,000 of each subaward, regardless of the subaward's period of performance. Everything else is left out.
| In the MTDC base | Left out of the MTDC base |
|---|---|
| Salaries and wages | Equipment |
| Fringe benefits | Capital expenditures |
| Materials and supplies | Charges for patient care |
| Services | Rental costs |
| Travel | Tuition remission |
| The first $50,000 of each subaward | Scholarships and fellowships |
| Participant support costs | |
| Each subaward's amount above $50,000 |
Two points trip people up. First, the $50,000 is counted once per subaward over the life of the award, not once per year: a subaward of $40,000 a year for three years puts $40,000, then $10,000, then nothing into the base. The tool tracks this across years. Second, an item costing less than the equipment threshold is not equipment, so a $1,800 laptop is a supply and goes into the base.
What Changed in 2024
| Rule | Before the 2024 revision | From 1 October 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment threshold (2 CFR 200.1) | $5,000 per unit | $10,000 per unit, or the institution's capitalization level if lower |
| Subaward amount in MTDC (2 CFR 200.1) | First $25,000 | First $50,000 |
| De minimis indirect rate (2 CFR 200.414) | 10% of MTDC | Up to 15% of MTDC |
The revised Uniform Guidance applies to federal awards made on or after 1 October 2024, so an older award may still carry the earlier thresholds — read your award terms. The de minimis rate is available only to a recipient with no current negotiated rate; one with a negotiated rate uses it, because federal agencies must accept negotiated rates. Both figures are editable in the tool, because your sponsor or institution may set something different. Non-federal funders follow their own rules entirely.
How Escalation Works
A multi-year budget has to say what people will cost in year three, not year one. The tool applies your annual salary increase from year 2 and compounds it: a $100,000 salary with 3% raises is $100,000, then $103,000, then $106,090. Fringe follows the escalated salary, because it is a percentage of pay. Other recurring costs get their own increase rate, set to 0% by default because many funders do not allow inflation on non-personnel costs. Equipment is not escalated — enter the price you expect to pay in the year you buy it — and neither are subawards, which come from the partner's own budget.
A Worked Example
Press Try an example: a three-year project with 3% annual raises, a 28% default fringe rate (8% for the graduate assistant), and a 15% indirect rate on MTDC. These rates are illustrative, not any institution's. Year 1 has $85,800 in salaries and $21,024 in fringe. The $24,000 eye tracker is equipment and stays out of the base, while the $1,800 laptop falls under the threshold and counts as a supply. The $40,000 subaward is in the base, so the year 1 base is $154,124 and the indirect costs are $23,119. In year 2 only $10,000 of the same subaward is in the base, and in year 3 none. Over the three years the direct costs are $524,483, the indirect costs $59,773, and the request $584,256.
Common Mistakes in Grant Budgets
- Charging indirect costs on equipment. Under MTDC it is excluded; check whether your agreement's base is MTDC or TDC before you assume.
- Resetting the subaward threshold each year. The first $50,000 is counted once per subaward for the entire award.
- Forgetting fringe. It follows every salary line, and it is not the same rate for every kind of employee. Use a fourth field to give a line its own rate.
- Entering the full-time salary as the cost. The budget line is the salary times the effort, and effort is a percentage of an appointment.
- Mixing up participant support and personnel. Stipends and travel paid to participants are participant support and are excluded from the base.
A planning tool, not a submission
The sponsor's solicitation, your institution's sponsored-programs office, and your negotiated rate agreement decide what is allowable and what rate applies. Use this to draft and compare scenarios, then have the final numbers checked and build the budget justification in your sponsor's format.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is MTDC in a grant budget?
- Modified total direct costs: salaries, fringe, materials and supplies, services, travel, and the first $50,000 of each subaward. It excludes equipment, capital expenditures, patient care, rental costs, tuition remission, scholarships and fellowships, participant support, and the part of each subaward above $50,000 (2 CFR 200.1). Indirect costs are charged as a percentage of this base.
- How do you calculate indirect costs on a grant?
- Multiply the indirect rate by the base. If the base is MTDC, build the MTDC first by removing excluded costs from the direct total, then apply the rate. With a 15% rate and a $154,124 MTDC base, indirect costs are $23,118.60, which this tool rounds to $23,119.
- What is the equipment threshold in 2 CFR 200.1?
- Equipment is property with a useful life of more than one year and a per-unit cost equal to or above the lesser of your institution's capitalization level or $10,000. The threshold was $5,000 before the 2024 revision, so awards made earlier may use that figure.
- How does the $50,000 subaward rule work over several years?
- Only the first $50,000 of each subaward counts toward MTDC, across the whole period of performance. A subaward of $40,000 a year puts $40,000 into the year 1 base, $10,000 into year 2, and nothing in year 3. If you have several subawards, each has its own $50,000.
- What is the de minimis indirect cost rate?
- A recipient with no current federal negotiated indirect cost rate may charge up to 15% of MTDC under 2 CFR 200.414, without documenting how it was calculated. Using it is optional, and once elected it applies to all federal awards until the recipient negotiates a rate.
- Should I include salary increases in a multi-year budget?
- Usually yes for personnel, using your institution's policy for annual raises. Many funders do not allow inflation on other costs, so check the solicitation. The calculator keeps the two rates separate for this reason.
- Does this grant budget calculator know my university's indirect rate?
- No. You type the rate from your negotiated rate agreement or your sponsor's rules, and the tool applies it to the base you choose. It makes no claim about any institution's rate.