Salary to Hourly Calculator

How to use this salary to hourly calculator

1. Pick a direction: Salary to hourly, Hourly to salary, or Freelance rate.
2. Enter the salary or hourly rate, then your hours a week.
3. For the two conversions, set the weeks you work a year. Leave it at 52 if your vacation and holidays are paid.
4. For the freelance rate, add your unpaid weeks off, the share of your hours you can bill, the benefits you'd lose and your yearly business costs.
5. Read the result, then copy the line to drop into a note, a client email or your own planning sheet.

The conversions answer "what is my salary per hour?" The freelance mode answers a different question: what do I have to charge a client to end up as well off as I was on a salary?

How to convert salary to hourly (and hourly to salary)

A salary is a yearly number, so you divide it by the hours you work in a year. A full-time year of 40 hours a week for 52 weeks is 2,080 hours.

Worked example. A $75,000 salary at 40 hours a week: $75,000 ÷ 2,080 = $36.06 an hour. That's $6,250 a month, $2,884.62 every two weeks and $1,442.31 a week.

Going the other way, $36 an hour × 40 hours × 52 weeks = $74,880 a year. If 4 of those weeks are unpaid, the year has 1,920 paid hours and the same rate earns $69,120.

Salary to hourly conversion table

Common salaries at 40 hours a week and 52 paid weeks. The last column is the freelance rate needed to match each salary with this calculator's default assumptions: 6 unpaid weeks off, 75% of hours billable, benefits worth 18% of pay and $3,000 a year in business costs.

Notice the pattern: the freelance rate lands close to double the salaried hourly rate. That isn't a rule, it's what happens once you pay for your own time off, benefits and the hours nobody pays for.

What a salary is really worth: benefits and payroll taxes

Your salary isn't the whole cost of employing you. The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks what private employers spend per hour worked. In June 2026, for full-time private industry workers, wages were 68.5% of total compensation and benefits were the other 31.5%.

The calculator handles each piece separately so nothing is counted twice. Paid leave becomes your unpaid weeks off. Insurance and retirement (about 18% of wages together) become the benefits value. Of the legally required costs, the big one is FICA: employers pay 6.2% Social Security on wages up to $184,500 in 2026 and 1.45% Medicare on all wages, according to IRS Topic 751. As a freelancer, you pay that employer half yourself.

Contractor pay: the freelance rate that matches a salary

This is where a plain salary to hourly calculator misleads freelancers. Dividing $75,000 by 2,080 says $36 an hour, but a freelancer charging $36 would end up far behind the employee.

Worked example, matching a $75,000 salary:

• Employer FICA: 6.2% × $75,000 = $4,650, plus 1.45% × $75,000 = $1,087.50, so $5,737.50.
• Benefits at 18% of pay: $13,500.
• Business costs you expect, like software, equipment and insurance: say $3,000.
• Revenue needed: $75,000 + $5,737.50 + $13,500 + $3,000 = $97,237.50.
• Billable hours: 40 hours × 46 working weeks × 75% billable = 1,380 hours.
• Rate: $97,237.50 ÷ 1,380 = $70.46 an hour, 1.95 times the salaried $36.06.

The employer FICA line is a simplification. Self-employment tax is 15.3% on 92.35% of your net earnings, and you deduct half of it. For the exact figure on your profit, use the self-employment tax calculator. Income tax is left out on purpose, because you owe it on a salary too. To see your take-home pay as a 1099 contractor, run your expected profit through the freelance tax calculator.

How to use the number when you set your rates

• Treat it as a floor. The result is what keeps you level with a job. Experience, demand and the value of the work can push your rate higher. Compare it with average freelance rates in your field.
• Be honest about billable hours. Admin, sales calls, invoicing and learning all eat into the week. Track a few weeks with the billable hours calculator before you trust 75%.
• Turn it into a day or project price. Multiply by the billable hours a job will take. A day of 6 billable hours at $70.46 is $422.76, which you might round to $425.
• Re-run it when things change. A new health plan, a slow quarter or a big software bill all move the rate you need.

Common mistakes when converting salary to hourly

• Using 52 weeks for unpaid time. If your holidays are unpaid, those weeks earn nothing. Use the weeks you're actually paid for.
• Assuming every hour is billable. A freelancer working 40 hours rarely invoices 40.
• Forgetting the employer's half of FICA. Employees never see it on a pay stub, so it's easy to miss when you go freelance.
• Counting benefits twice. If you enter unpaid weeks off, don't also include paid leave in the benefits percentage.
• Comparing gross to net. Keep both sides before tax. A salary is quoted gross, and so is a freelance rate.

Putting your hourly rate on an invoice

Hourly work goes on an invoice as a line item: hours as the quantity, your rate as the price. "Design work, 12.5 hours × $70.00 = $875.00" tells the client exactly what they're paying for.

You can make one now with the free invoice generator, which creates a PDF without signing up. In Onigiri, line items are qty × rate with tax rates and discounts, and invoices go out by email, as a link or as a PDF. The free plan covers 3 invoices a month with unlimited clients. PRO ($12/month or $108/year) adds unlimited invoices, saved item and service templates for your rates, and card payments through your own Stripe account.

Frequently asked questions