What Is Your Time Worth Calculator
Calculate your true hourly rate from annual salary, work hours, commute, and expenses.
Helps decide whether outsourcing or freelancing makes financial sense.
Knowing what your time is worth helps you make smarter decisions about when to do things yourself versus paying someone else. If your time is worth $50/hour, spending 3 hours to save $30 on an oil change is actually a net loss.
The basic formula: Hourly worth = Annual income / Total working hours per year
For a standard full-time job: $60,000 / 2,080 hours = $28.85/hour
But that is the ceiling, not the floor. The real rate is lower, because the job takes more of your week than the hours you are paid for:
- Getting ready, commuting, and the hour afterwards where you are home but not really back yet
- Free hours are scarce, maybe three or four a day once work and sleep are out, so each one is worth more than an average hour
- An hour at 9pm is not the same asset as an hour at 9am, whatever the arithmetic says
A better calculation counts all the time the job consumes: Total work hours = Job hours + Commute + Getting ready + Decompression
Example: 40 hours of work, 5 hours of commuting, and 3 hours of prep and decompression = 48 hours. $60,000 / (48 × 52) = $24.04/hour, against the $28.85 the payslip implies.
How to use this number:
- Cleaning: House cleaning costs $25–50/hour. If your time is worth more, hire a cleaner.
- Lawn care: $30–60 per visit. Takes you 1–2 hours. Compare to your rate.
- Car wash: $15–25 automated vs 1 hour of your time.
- Meal prep vs takeout: Cooking saves money but costs 1–2 hours.
- DIY repairs: $50–100/hour for a handyman. How long would it take you?
Important caveat: time saved is not money earned. Buy back an hour and spend it scrolling, and the financial value is exactly zero. This number is only useful when the recovered hour goes somewhere: extra billable work, rest that makes you better at your job, or time with people you would otherwise not see.
Tip: track your genuinely free hours for one week before trusting your estimate. Almost everyone guesses high, because the hour that got eaten by admin, laundry and a phone call still feels like it was free.
How we build and check this calculator
This calculator runs entirely in your browser, so the numbers you enter stay on your device. The math behind it is written by hand and tested against worked examples and standard references before the page goes live.
SuperGlobalCalculator is independently built and maintained. See how we build and verify our calculators.