What the salary calculator does
The salary calculator converts any pay rate into every common pay frequency: hourly, daily, weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly and annual. Type a number in any one, pick the matching frequency, and the other six update live. It's the fastest way to compare a $30/hour contract against a $62,400 salary, or to translate a US bi-weekly paycheck into the monthly figure your budget app wants.
How the math works
Every conversion runs through the same internal annual gross number:
- Hourly → annual: rate × hours/week × weeks/year (default 40 × 52 = 2,080)
- Daily → annual: rate × (hours/week ÷ 5) days per week × weeks/year (assumes 5-day week)
- Weekly → annual: rate × weeks/year
- Bi-weekly → annual: rate × 26 (52 weeks ÷ 2)
- Semi-monthly → annual: rate × 24 (twice a month × 12 months)
- Monthly → annual: rate × 12
From annual, the calculator divides back out into all the other frequencies and displays them in the grid. Tweak hours per week or weeks per year and everything recalibrates instantly.
Bi-weekly vs. semi-monthly: the eternal confusion
These two trip up almost everyone. Bi-weekly means every 14 days — exactly 26 paychecks a year, and two months a year have three paychecks instead of two. Semi-monthly means twice a month, usually on the 1st and 15th (or 15th and 30th) — exactly 24 paychecks a year, the same every month. For the same annual salary, semi-monthly paychecks are slightly larger (each one covers 24 instead of 26 periods), but bi-weekly delivers those occasional "bonus" three-paycheck months.
Hours per week: be honest
40 is the US Fair Labor Standards Act benchmark for "full-time", and most calculations assume it. If you're salaried and your job is more like 50 hours a week, your real hourly rate is much lower than the headline number suggests. Plug your actual hours into this calculator to see the truth: a $90,000 annual salary at 50 hours/week is $34.62/hour, not $43.27/hour at 40 hours.
Gross, not net
Every number here is gross — what you earn before federal income tax, FICA (Social Security 6.2% + Medicare 1.45%), state income tax, health insurance premiums and retirement contributions. To estimate take-home, run the annual figure through our income tax calculator. To project that take-home into long-term wealth, the investment calculator shows what regular contributions become.
When negotiating offers
One of the most practical uses of this tool is comparing offers in different formats. A $50/hour 1099 contract isn't necessarily better than a $90,000 W-2 salary — the contractor pays self-employment tax (15.3%), provides their own benefits, and gets no PTO. Convert both to annual gross, then back out a realistic comparison.