You just got offered $23 an hour. Is that good? A friend mentions they make $48,000 a year — how does that compare to what you earn? You're considering going freelance at $65 an hour, but you're not sure what that actually means for your yearly income.
This calculator answers all of that instantly. Enter your hourly wage and your weekly hours, and you'll see your earnings broken down across seven time intervals: annual, monthly, biweekly, weekly, daily, per minute, and per second.
Two inputs. Seven numbers. Your complete pay picture.
A Quick Mental Math Shortcut
Before you even use the calculator, here's a trick worth knowing: multiply your hourly rate by 2,000 to get a rough annual salary figure (based on 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year). It's not exact, but it's fast.
- $15/hour → ~$30,000/year
- $25/hour → ~$50,000/year
- $50/hour → ~$100,000/year
The actual number — using 52 weeks — is slightly higher. $25/hour works out to $52,000, not $50,000. That's why the calculator exists: to give you the precise figure, not the ballpark. But the ×2,000 trick is useful for quick comparisons in your head.
How to Use This Calculator
Step 1 — Enter your hourly wage. Type your rate in the "Hourly wage" field. This can be your current rate, an offer you're evaluating, or a freelance rate you're considering charging. The field accepts any value from $0 to $100,000.
Step 2 — Enter your hours per week. The default is 40 (standard full-time). Adjust this to reflect your actual schedule — whether that's 20 hours of part-time work, 50 hours of a demanding job, or 32 hours of a compressed week. You can enter values from 1 to 168 hours per week in half-hour increments.
Your results appear in three groups:
- Primary Results — Your annual salary, front and center
- Standard Intervals — Daily, weekly, biweekly, and monthly earnings
- Other Intervals — Per-minute and per-second earnings (surprisingly useful — see below)
All figures update instantly as you type.
What Each Number Actually Means
Annual Salary
Your total gross earnings for the year, assuming consistent hours every week. This is the number that appears on job postings, tax documents, and salary negotiation conversations. It's also the most useful figure for comparing an hourly offer to a salaried position.
Formula: Hourly Wage × Hours Per Week × 52
A nurse's aide earning $18/hour at 40 hours a week earns $37,440 a year. An electrician at $35/hour on the same schedule earns $72,800. The hourly number can be deceiving; the annual figure tells the real story.
Monthly Earnings
Your annual figure divided by 12. Since rent, loan payments, and most bills are monthly, this is the number that matters most for budgeting. It's the answer to "can I actually afford this apartment?"
Formula: Annual Salary ÷ 12
Biweekly Pay
Many employers pay every two weeks, making this one of the most practical numbers to know. It's 26 paychecks per year — different from semi-monthly (24 paychecks), a distinction worth understanding.
Formula: Weekly Earnings × 2
Weekly Earnings
What a single week of work is worth. Useful for freelancers who bill weekly, or anyone tracking income on a week-by-week basis.
Formula: Hourly Wage × Hours Per Week
Daily Earnings
Based on a 5-day work week, this tells you what a single workday generates — and, by extension, what a personal day or sick day actually costs you in lost income.
Formula: (Hours Per Week ÷ 5) × Hourly Wage
At $30/hour for 8 hours, a single day of work is worth $240. That reframes how you think about days off, scheduling decisions, and whether that appointment really needs to happen on a workday.
The Full Formula, All in One Place
All calculations assume consistent hours year-round and show gross pay — before taxes, insurance, or retirement contributions. Here's everything at a glance:
Time Period | Formula | $20/hr, 40 hrs/week | $40/hr, 40 hrs/week |
|---|---|---|---|
Per hour | Your input | $20.00 | $40.00 |
Daily | (Hrs/week ÷ 5) × hourly | $160.00 | $320.00 |
Weekly | Hourly × hrs/week | $800.00 | $1,600.00 |
Biweekly | Weekly × 2 | $1,600.00 | $3,200.00 |
Monthly | Annual ÷ 12 | $3,466.67 | $6,933.33 |
Annual | Hourly × hrs/week × 52 | $41,600 | $83,200 |
Per minute | Hourly ÷ 60 | $0.333 | $0.667 |
Per second | Hourly ÷ 3,600 | $0.00556 | $0.01111 |
What Your Per-Minute Rate Actually Reveals
This one surprises people.
At $20 an hour, you earn $0.33 per minute. At $50 an hour, you earn $0.83 per minute — almost a dollar for every 60 seconds you're working. That might seem like trivia, but it changes how you think about your time in concrete, practical ways.
Consider a freelance designer billing at $75 an hour. That's $1.25 per minute. A 20-minute client call — the kind that "shouldn't take long" — costs $25 of their productive time. A 90-minute project revision that could have been prevented by a clearer brief? $112.50, gone.
Or consider someone earning $30 an hour who's been asked to sit on a weekly 45-minute all-hands meeting that doesn't affect their work. That's $22.50 per week, $90 per month, $1,170 per year. Not an argument to skip every meeting — but a useful lens for which ones are actually worth your time.
This perspective is especially practical for:
- Freelancers and consultants deciding whether to take on small tasks, respond to speculative inquiries, or handle administrative work themselves
- Employees evaluating job offers — a role that pays $5/hour more might mean gaining $0.08 per minute, or about $200 extra per month
- Anyone building better habits around focus and productivity, by understanding the real cost of distraction
The per-second figure is admittedly more of a curiosity — but watching $0.01 tick up every few seconds has a way of making abstract earnings feel real.
Common Hourly Wages and What They Mean Annually
Here's a reference table for the wages people most often search — based on a standard 40-hour, 52-week year. These are gross figures before taxes.
Hourly Wage | Annual Salary | Monthly | Biweekly |
|---|---|---|---|
$7.25 (federal min. wage) | $15,080 | $1,257 | $580 |
$10.00 | $20,800 | $1,733 | $800 |
$15.00 (common living wage target) | $31,200 | $2,600 | $1,200 |
$20.00 | $41,600 | $3,467 | $1,600 |
$25.00 | $52,000 | $4,333 | $2,000 |
$30.00 (near U.S. median hourly) | $62,400 | $5,200 | $2,400 |
$40.00 | $83,200 | $6,933 | $3,200 |
$48.08 (~$100K threshold) | $100,007 | $8,334 | $3,846 |
$50.00 | $104,000 | $8,667 | $4,000 |
$75.00 | $156,000 | $13,000 | $6,000 |
$100.00 | $208,000 | $17,333 | $8,000 |
A note on minimum wage: the $7.25 federal minimum wage hasn't changed since 2009. Many states and cities have higher minimums — if you're in California, Washington, or New York, your effective floor is substantially higher. Always use your actual wage for an accurate result.
Hourly vs. Salaried: A Practical Guide
If you're trying to decide whether to accept a salaried position, move to hourly work, or compare compensation across job offers, here's what to weigh — beyond the raw numbers.
Hourly work typically means:
- Pay reflects hours actually worked — flexible, but no guaranteed minimum beyond hours clocked
- Overtime (hours beyond 40/week) is often paid at 1.5× your base rate — a real earnings boost for those who want it
- Schedule flexibility in many roles
- Benefits vary widely; some hourly roles include full benefits, others offer none
Salaried work typically means:
- The same paycheck regardless of whether a given week runs 38 hours or 55
- Overtime pay typically doesn't apply to salaried "exempt" positions
- More predictable income; usually stronger and more consistent benefits
- Your hourly equivalent drops every week you work late
Three questions to help you decide:
- Do you regularly work more than 40 hours? If yes, hourly with overtime pay can be meaningfully more lucrative — do the math on what your overtime adds up to annually.
- How important is income predictability to you? If you have a mortgage, dependents, or fixed financial obligations, a salaried paycheck offers security that hourly income doesn't.
- What's the effective hourly rate of the salaried offer? Divide the salary by 52, then by your expected weekly hours. A $70,000 salary at 50 hours a week is $26.92/hour — potentially less than a $30/hour hourly role at 40 hours.
To reverse-calculate any salary into an hourly rate: divide by 52, then divide by your weekly hours. A $65,000 salary at 40 hours a week = $65,000 ÷ 52 ÷ 40 = $31.25/hour. That's the number to compare against an hourly offer.
All figures represent gross earnings before federal and state income taxes, Social Security, Medicare, and any other deductions. Actual take-home pay will vary based on your filing status, deductions, and location. This calculator assumes consistent hours every week of the year — it does not account for unpaid time off, seasonal work, or variable-hour arrangements.