How the salary to hourly rate calculator works
The maths behind this salary to hourly rate calculator is straightforward. It multiplies your hours per week by the number of weeks you work to get your total annual hours. It then divides your annual salary by that number to give you an hourly figure.
For example: a $90,000 salary, 38 hours a week, 52 weeks a year gives 1,976 annual hours and an hourly rate of around $45.55. Change the weeks field to 46 to take out four weeks of annual leave and about two weeks of public holidays, and the rate goes up to about $51.49, a more honest figure if you actually want to know what your time costs.
The daily, weekly, and monthly figures are derived from the same base: daily is your hourly rate multiplied by your average hours per day (hours per week divided by 5), weekly is your salary divided by weeks worked, and monthly is your salary divided by 12.
Employee vs contractor (charge more as a contractor)
This calculator gives you the gross employee equivalent, useful for comparing a salary offer to a contract rate. But if you are a contractor, this number is your floor, not your ceiling.
As a contractor in Australia, you are covering your own super (12% since 1 July 2025), any unpaid leave, public holidays, time between contracts, insurance, and equipment. A rough rule: add 30 to 50 percent on top of the employee equivalent to land at a rate that actually replaces the same take-home income. Use the Hourly Rate Calculator if you want to build up from costs and margin rather than convert from a salary.
For agency owners and freelancers, knowing your cost-of-time is also the foundation of a healthy profit margin. If you are billing clients at a rate that is only slightly above your own hourly cost, there is no room for growth.
What your time is really worth
Most people underestimate the cost of their own time. If you earn $90,000 and spend two hours a week manually updating spreadsheets, that is roughly $91 a week (or about $4,700 a year) on a task that could be automated for a one-off build cost that pays for itself in months.
Knowing your hourly rate makes it easier to decide which tasks are worth doing yourself and which are worth delegating or automating. It also helps you spot when a "free" process is actually one of the most expensive things in your business.
If you want to know which repetitive parts of your week are worth automating, book a free 30-minute call and we will go through them with you, including the ones that aren't worth it.
