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Hourly to Salary Calculator

A free hourly to salary calculator that converts pay in both directions: hourly rate to annual salary, or a target salary to the hourly rate you need. Includes a freelancer mode that factors in billable hours percentage, business expenses, and self-employment tax to reveal your real take-home pay per hour actually worked.

Hourly to salary — the core formula

Annual salary = Hourly rate × Hours per week × Paid weeks per year. If you're paid for all 52 weeks, that's straightforward; if you take unpaid time off, subtract those weeks first — a $30/hour job at 40 hours/week is $62,400/year over 52 paid weeks, but only $60,000 over 50.

Why freelancers need a different calculation

An employee's 40 billed hours and 40 worked hours are the same thing. A freelancer's aren't — time spent on proposals, admin, invoicing, and marketing is worked but not billable. If only 70% of a 40-hour week is billable, the calculator uses 28 billable hours to compute revenue, not 40, which is why the same quoted hourly rate produces very different real income for an employee versus a freelancer.

The "true effective hourly rate" most freelancers never calculate

After business expenses and self-employment tax are subtracted from freelance revenue, the calculator divides the remaining take-home by every hour actually worked (billable and not). This number is often dramatically lower than the quoted hourly rate — seeing it is usually the moment a freelancer realizes their rate needs to go up.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Assuming 52 paid weeks per year

Solution:

Most jobs include unpaid holidays, sick days, or vacation. Subtract those weeks in the "Unpaid weeks off" field for an accurate annual figure.

Confusing gross salary with take-home pay

Solution:

This calculator's main result is gross (before income tax and standard payroll deductions). Freelancer mode estimates a closer-to-real take-home by also subtracting expenses and self-employment tax.

Freelancers quoting an hourly rate based on hours worked, not hours billed

Solution:

Enter your realistic billable percentage (most freelancers land between 60-80%) so the revenue estimate reflects hours you can actually invoice, not hours you spend at your desk.

Ignoring self-employment tax entirely

Solution:

In the US, self-employment tax (Social Security + Medicare) is roughly 15.3% on net profit — a significant deduction that a simple hourly-times-hours calculation misses completely.

Using full-time hours for a part-time or reduced schedule

Solution:

Enter your actual hours per week — a $50,000 salary at 40 hours/week is a very different hourly rate than the same salary at 25 hours/week.

Frequently Asked Questions

Multiply your hourly rate by your hours per week, then by the number of paid weeks per year. For example, $25/hour at 40 hours/week for 52 paid weeks is $52,000/year.
A full year is 52 weeks, but most jobs have some unpaid time off (holidays, sick days, unpaid vacation). Enter your actual unpaid weeks so the calculator only counts weeks you're actually paid for.
Gross is your pay before taxes and deductions. This calculator's main result is gross; Freelancer mode gets closer to take-home by also subtracting business expenses and estimated self-employment tax, though it doesn't include personal income tax.
It adjusts your effective billable hours by your billable percentage (since not all worked hours are billable), then subtracts monthly business expenses and an estimated self-employment tax rate from the resulting revenue to estimate real take-home pay.
In the US, self-employment tax covers the Social Security and Medicare contributions an employer would normally split with you — currently about 15.3% of net profit. The default rate can be adjusted for other situations.
Most freelancers are billable 60-80% of their working time, once admin, marketing, and unpaid client communication are accounted for. Track your own hours for a few weeks to find your real number.
No — every calculation runs locally in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded, logged, or stored on any server.

Free Online Hourly to Salary Calculator

Convert an hourly rate into an annual salary, or work backward from a target salary to the hourly rate you'd need to charge — both directions, instantly. Switch on Freelancer mode to also account for unbillable hours, monthly business expenses, and self-employment tax.

What You Get

  • Hourly → salary and salary → hourly, in one calculator
  • Monthly, bi-weekly, weekly, and daily breakdowns alongside the annual figure
  • A Freelancer mode that adjusts for billable hours percentage, not just hours worked
  • An estimated self-employment tax and business-expense deduction
  • A "true effective hourly rate" — what you actually take home per hour worked, not per hour billed

Who Uses This Calculator

Job seekers comparing an hourly offer to a salaried one, employees estimating annual pay from a posted hourly wage, and freelancers or contractors figuring out what to actually charge once unbillable time, expenses, and self-employment tax are accounted for.