How many hours of work does it cost?

Enter a price and what you earn. See it in hours, work days and weeks of your life.

Your numbers

Used for weeks to afford it, and to turn a salary into an hourly rate.

Hours of work

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Work days (8h)

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Weeks of pay

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Hourly rate

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What everyday things cost in hours

Hours of work at three take-home hourly rates, before sales tax.

Item Price At $15/hAt $25/hAt $40/h
Takeaway coffee $6 24m14m9m
Streaming subscription (1 year) $192 12h 48m7h 41m4h 48m
Wireless earbuds $249 16h 36m9h 58m6h 14m
New phone $999 66h 36m39h 58m24h 59m
Laptop $1,499 99h 56m59h 58m37h 29m

Need cost per hour instead?

Going the other way: what a job, a rental or a contractor costs for each hour. Divide the total cost by the hours.

Cost per hour

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Why think about prices in hours?

"$249" is easy to say yes to. "Ten hours of work" is harder. Converting a price into time ties it to something you already feel: a day and a bit at your desk, or most of a weekend shift.

It works best for things you're on the fence about. Pick the take-home rate, not your headline salary, and add sales tax if you pay it. Otherwise everything looks cheaper than it is.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I convert a price into hours of work? ▾
Divide the price by what you take home per hour. A $600 phone costs 30 hours of work if you take home $20 an hour. Add sales tax to the price first if you pay it at the till.
Should I use my gross or take-home pay? ▾
Take-home pay. Income tax, social security and pension contributions never reach your bank account, so they can't pay for anything. Using gross pay makes everything look cheaper than it is.
How do I turn an annual salary into an hourly rate? ▾
Divide your yearly take-home pay by the hours you work in a year. At 40 hours a week for 52 weeks that's 2,080 hours, so $52,000 a year after tax is $25 an hour. Pick "Yearly salary" in the calculator and it does this for you using your weekly hours.
How many weeks will it take to afford something? ▾
Divide the price by what you earn in a week. If you earn $9.86 an hour and work 5.5 hours a weekend, that's about $54 a week, so a $597.50 phone takes about 11 weeks of wages. The calculator shows weeks once you enter your weekly hours.
Is this the same as a cost per hour calculator? ▾
No. This tool goes from a price to hours of your work. If you want the opposite, such as what a job or rental costs per hour, use the cost per hour calculator further down this page: divide the total cost by the number of hours.
Is my data saved anywhere? ▾
No. Everything is calculated in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded or stored.

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