Enter any hourly rate to see the yearly, monthly, biweekly, weekly, and daily equivalents — on the standard 2,080-hour year or your own assumptions. The freelancer view shows what the same rate really grosses at 60% billable time.
Yearly at $50/hour
$104,000
40 hours/week × 52 weeks, before tax
Freelancer view: billing 60% of your time across 46 working weeks, $50/hour grosses about $55,200 a year — before tax and business costs.
Full-time gross (40 hrs × 52 weeks), before tax.
The standard conversion multiplies your hourly rate by 40 hours and 52 weeks — 2,080 hours. It is the number payroll systems, recruiters, and job ads assume, which makes it the right baseline for comparing offers. It is also optimistic for almost everyone: vacations, holidays, and sick days mean fewer paid hours unless they are paid time off.
For freelancers and contractors the gap is much bigger. Unbillable time — proposals, admin, marketing, bookkeeping — typically eats 40% of a working week, and independent workers average closer to 46 working weeks than 52. That is why every page here shows a separate freelancer figure, and why our rate calculator works the problem in the opposite direction: from the income you want to the rate that actually delivers it.