TabSalary calculator guide
How to calculate your true hourly wage
A posted hourly rate counts paid work time but often ignores the unpaid time and out-of-pocket costs required to hold the job. This calculator converts those costs into a comparable hourly figure so you can evaluate job offers, hybrid schedules, and commute tradeoffs on the same basis.
Independently built and maintained · Published July 23, 2026 · Last reviewed August 23, 2026
The sticker wage on a job posting answers a narrower question than most people think they are asking. It says what you earn per paid hour; it says nothing about the 45 minutes of unpaid driving bracketing each shift or the $200 a month in fuel, parking, and transit fares that exist only because the job does. When two offers differ by a dollar an hour, those hidden line items routinely decide which one actually pays more.
This tool makes the hidden costs explicit. Commute minutes convert into unpaid hours that inflate your time commitment, commute cash and job-specific expenses reduce effective income, and the result is restated as a single comparable rate. Two otherwise similar offers — one near, one far — become directly comparable on the numbers that reach your life rather than the ones printed in the listing.
How the calculation works
True hourly wage = (weekly gross pay − weekly job costs) ÷ (paid hours + unpaid commute hours)
- Multiply the stated hourly rate by weekly paid hours to estimate gross weekly pay.
- Convert annual work expenses to a weekly amount and multiply daily commute costs by your entered workdays.
- Convert the daily round-trip commute to weekly hours using your entered workdays, then add it to paid work time.
- Subtract job costs from gross pay, then divide by all job-related hours.
Worked example
At $25 per hour for 40 paid hours, gross weekly pay is $1,000. A 60-minute daily commute adds five unpaid hours. With $10 per day in commuting costs and $500 per year in work expenses, the comparison rate is materially lower than the stated $25. That difference is useful when comparing a nearby role with lower headline pay against a farther role with higher pay.
What this estimate does not include
- Income and payroll taxes, employer benefits, bonuses, overtime rules, and paid leave are not modeled.
- Commute time is valued only through the denominator; the calculator does not assign it a separate personal value.
- Work expenses should include only costs you would not otherwise incur, and estimates should use a typical week.
Use the result as a planning estimate, not as personalized financial, tax, legal, or investment advice.
Source ledger
Primary references- U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked Under the Fair Labor Standards Act — why ordinary home-to-work commute time is not compensable work time.
- TabSalary formula review: gross pay, job costs, and unpaid commute time are kept as separate intermediate values.
Rates and rules are checked against the primary source before publication and re-checked whenever the source changes. External links open in a new tab; calculator inputs never leave your browser.