Salary to Hourly Calculator
Convert your annual salary to an hourly wage, and see what you'd need to charge as a freelancer to make the same amount.
Salary before tax, as it appears on the offer. Your 7.65% FICA is already inside this figure, so only the employer's half gets added. Working from a take-home target instead? Freelance Rate takes that.
Standard full-time is 40 hours.
Freelance assumptions
These decide the target rate below. Change any of them to see what it does.
52 minus holiday and public holidays. Nobody pays a freelancer for time off.
The rest goes to pitching, admin and invoicing. 75% is typical once established; 50–60% is normal in a first year.
Health insurance, any retirement match, disability. Set to 0 if you are covered on someone else's plan.
Standard W-2 Hourly Wage
$36.06
/ hrWeekly
$1442.31
Monthly
$6250.00
Freelance Conversion
To end up as well off as a $75,000 salary, you have to cover the employer half of payroll tax, buy your own benefits, and earn it all inside the hours you can actually bill.
Of the 15.3% self-employment tax, you were already paying 7.65% as an employee — the real increase is $7,510, not the whole amount. Business expenses — software, equipment, insurance — are on top of this.
Compare W-2 vs 1099 taxes →💼 Going Freelance? Here's Your Breakeven Rate
To match a $75,000/year W-2 salary as a 1099 contractor, you need at least $65.11/hr after self-employment tax and the benefits you now pay for yourself.
$93,760 of revenue spread over 1,440 billable hours — not the 2,080 hours in a working year. You cannot bill the time you spend finding work, invoicing or on holiday.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you calculate salary to hourly?
We divide your annual salary by the total number of hours you work in a year. For a standard full-time job (40 hours/week, 52 weeks/year), this is 2,080 hours. So a $50,000 salary ÷ 2,080 = $24.04 per hour.
Why is the "Freelance Equivalent" higher?
When you are a W-2 employee, your employer pays half of your payroll taxes (FICA) and provides benefits like health insurance and paid time off. When you are a 1099 freelancer, you must pay the full 15.3% Self-Employment tax yourself and cover your own benefits. To maintain the same standard of living, freelancers must charge a higher hourly rate than their W-2 counterparts.
What is the standard multiplier for moving from W-2 to Freelance?
A common rule of thumb is to add 25% to 30% to your W-2 hourly rate to find your base freelance rate. Our calculator uses a standard +25% multiplier to account for the extra tax burden and lack of paid time off.
Does this calculate taxes?
This calculator provides gross figures (before income tax). If you want an estimate of your take-home pay after federal and state taxes, use our Paycheck Calculator below.