Convert hourly rate to annual salary, or find hourly rate from a salary. Includes freelance rate calculator accounting for non-billable time and benefits.
Hourly ↔ Salary Converter
Standard Conversion
Annual
Monthly
Weekly
Hourly
Freelance Rate Calculator (accounts for non-billable time)
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Hourly Rate vs Annual Salary: How to Convert
Converting between hourly and annual is straightforward for employees: Annual = Hourly × Hours/Week × 52. But for freelancers, the math is more nuanced — because you don't bill 40 hours every week of the year.
Standard Conversion Formula
A standard full-time employee works 40 hours × 52 weeks = 2,080 hours/year. At $30/hour: $30 × 2,080 = $62,400/year. At $60,000/year: $60,000 / 2,080 = $28.85/hour.
Freelance Rate Calculation
Freelancers must account for: non-billable time (admin, sales, learning — typically 30–50% of hours), unpaid vacation, business expenses, and self-employment taxes (~15.3% in the US). A freelancer needing $80,000/year who bills 25 hours/week for 48 working weeks needs: ($80,000 + $5,000 expenses) / (25 × 48) = $70.83/hour base rate. With 30% tax buffer: ~$101/hour recommended rate.
Rule of Thumb: Freelance Rate = 2× Employee Rate
To match a $60,000 salaried job as a freelancer, you typically need to charge $55–65/hour — roughly 2× the equivalent employee hourly rate — to account for all the costs an employer would otherwise cover (benefits, taxes, equipment, downtime).
Frequently Asked Questions
Standard US full-time: 40 hours/week × 52 weeks = 2,080 hours/year. Accounting for 10 federal holidays and 2 weeks vacation = ~1,920 actual working hours. Some calculations round to 2,000 hours. For salary-to-hourly conversions, most people use 2,080 as the standard denominator.
$50/hour full-time (2,080 hours) = $104,000 gross. But realistic billable hours for freelancers are 1,000–1,500/year. At 1,200 billable hours: $50 × 1,200 = $60,000 gross before taxes and expenses. After 30% taxes and $5,000 expenses: ~$37,000 net. Whether that's 'good' depends entirely on your cost of living and target income.
Annual = Hourly Rate × Hours per Week × Weeks per Year. For 20 hours/week × 50 working weeks: $25 × 20 × 50 = $25,000/year. Adjust the weeks for your actual schedule — if you work 48 weeks, it's $25 × 20 × 48 = $24,000.
Standard calculation: $100,000 / 2,080 hours = $48.08/hour. If you work 50 hours/week: $100,000 / (50 × 52) = $38.46/hour effective hourly rate. The more hours you work for the same salary, the lower your true hourly rate — relevant when comparing job offers with different expected hours.