🪤 Job Cost Calculator
You know what your job pays. Almost nobody knows what their job costs: the commute, the wardrobe, the childcare that only exists because of the job, and the hours that never show up on the paycheck. Add those in and your real hourly rate is a different number.
A 40 hour job with an hour commute each way is really 50+.
Your TRUE hourly rate
$22.5
The hourly rate you think you earn
$31.25
What the job costs you per year
$6,500
What you actually keep (before taxes)
$58,500
On paper you earn $31 an hour. But the job takes 50 real hours a week and costs you $6,500 a year to keep, so you actually earn $23 an hour and keep $58,500 before taxes even touch it. That gap of $9 an hour is the price of the job itself.
Estimates for planning, not financial advice. Your real numbers will vary; that is exactly why you track them.
Does this resonate?
That number is why you are here
Most people feel this result before they ever calculate it. The next question is what you could build instead. Browse real business ideas matched to what you already know how to do.
See what you could build instead →Good questions about this math
Why count commute and recovery time as work hours?
Because those hours belong to the job whether or not they are paid. If you cannot use an hour for yourself, your family, or your own income, it is a working hour. Dividing your pay by the real hours is the only honest hourly rate.
Should childcare really count as a job cost?
Count the part that only exists because of the job. If you would keep the same childcare while working from home or running your own schedule, leave it out. If the job's hours and location force it, it is a cost of keeping the job.
What do I do with this number?
Use it as your baseline. Any hour you spend building something of your own only has to beat your TRUE hourly rate, not the sticker rate. For most people that bar is 20 to 40 percent lower than they thought.
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