About the Salary Calculator
A salary calculator converts an hourly wage into weekly, monthly, and annual equivalents. It is what you need to compare an hourly role against a salaried one, or to check whether a rate offer matches your target income.
The formula
Annual = hourly rate · hours per week · 52The standard full-time year is 2,080 hours — 40 hours across 52 weeks. Monthly is annual divided by 12, which differs slightly from four weekly payments.
How to use this calculator
- 1Enter your Hourly Wage ($). The field starts at
25, which you can overwrite. - 2Enter your Hours per Week. The field starts at
40, which you can overwrite. - 3Read the result straight away — it recalculates as you type, so there is no button to press. Use Share to copy a link that reopens the page with your exact numbers filled in.
Worked example
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Hourly Wage ($) | 25 |
| Hours per Week | 40 |
Result
Annual Salary: $52,000.00
Those are the values the page loads with, so you can reproduce this result yourself and then change one field at a time to see what drives the outcome.
Understanding your result
The quick conversion is to double the hourly rate and read it as thousands: 25 dollars an hour is roughly 50,000 a year at full time. It works because 2,080 hours is close to 2,000, and it is accurate to within about 4 percent.
The comparison between hourly and salaried is not just about the number. Hourly work usually earns overtime beyond 40 hours; salaried exempt roles do not, so a salaried job with regular 50-hour weeks pays a considerably lower effective hourly rate than its headline suggests. Benefits, paid leave, and job security also differ substantially.
Things worth knowing
- Full-time is conventionally 2,080 hours a year, though paid holidays reduce actual hours worked.
- Include the value of benefits when comparing offers — health cover and retirement matching are often 20 to 30 percent of salary.
- Hourly workers classed as non-exempt earn overtime beyond 40 hours; salaried exempt workers generally do not.
- Contract and freelance rates should be higher than employee equivalents to cover self-employment tax and unpaid leave.
- Monthly pay is annual divided by 12, which is not the same as four weekly payments.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert hourly pay to an annual salary?+
Multiply the hourly rate by hours per week and by 52. At 25 dollars an hour for 40 hours, that is 52,000 a year before tax.
How many work hours are in a year?+
2,080 for standard full-time work — 40 hours across 52 weeks. Paid holidays and leave reduce hours actually worked without reducing pay.
Is salaried better than hourly?+
It depends. Salaried roles offer predictable income and usually better benefits but no overtime pay. Hourly work earns extra for extra hours, which can make it better paid where overtime is common.
What should I charge as a freelancer?+
Considerably more than the employee equivalent — commonly 1.3 to 1.5 times — to cover self-employment tax, unpaid leave, health cover, and periods without work.