What do you actually earn per hour?

Your salary divided by scheduled hours isn't your real hourly wage. Add in commute, unpaid overtime, and decompression time — subtract job costs — and see what your job really pays.

How do you usually feel after work?

40 hrs
30 min
30 min
0 hrs

Work clothes, convenience food, stress-spending, work subscriptions — anything you spend because of this job.

5 days

Your real hourly wage

$18.88

Not $23.08/hr like your salary suggests

18% less than it looks

Real hours / month

198.6

Real take-home

$3,750

Est. lost / year

$9,998

What does that purchase really cost you?

Translated into hours of your real wage, not the price tag.

That's 5.3 hours of your real work

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How this is calculated

Real hourly wage is your job-adjusted take-home pay divided by every hour your job actually costs you, including time you're not paid for.

realHoursPerMonth = (hours + overtime + commuteMin/60*days + decompMin/60*days) * (52/12) naiveHoursPerMonth = hours * (52/12) realTakeHome = max(0, salary - commuteCost - otherWorkCost) realWage = realTakeHome / realHoursPerMonth naiveWage = salary / naiveHoursPerMonth gapPercent = round((1 - realWage/naiveWage) * 100) annualLoss = (naiveWage - realWage) * realHoursPerMonth * 12

Worked example

Someone earning $4,000/month take-home, working 40 scheduled hours a week with a 40-minute daily round-trip commute and 30 minutes of decompression time, spending $250/month on commuting and other job costs, has a real hourly wage of about $18.88 — not the $23.08/hr their salary implies. That's an 18% gap, or roughly $9,998 a year.

The real hourly wage concept is based on Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez.

Frequently asked questions

Real hourly wage is your actual take-home pay divided by every hour your job truly costs you, not just the hours on your schedule. It subtracts job-related expenses from your pay and adds commute, unpaid overtime, and decompression time to your hours. The result is almost always lower than your naive hourly rate (pay divided by scheduled hours). This concept comes from the book Your Money or Your Life.

Add up every job-related hour: scheduled hours, unpaid overtime, daily commute time, and decompression time needed to recover after work. Subtract job-related costs like commuting expenses and work-related spending from your take-home pay. Divide the adjusted pay by the adjusted hours to get your real hourly wage. WageReality does this calculation automatically as you type.

The real hourly wage concept comes from the 1992 personal finance book Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez. The book argues that a job costs more than the hours listed on a paycheck, once commuting, decompression, and work-related spending are counted. WageReality applies that framework to a live, private calculator. No sign-up or account is required to use it.

Your real hourly wage is usually lower because it counts hours your naive rate ignores, like commuting and unpaid overtime. It also subtracts money you spend because of your job, such as commuting costs or convenience purchases. Most people underestimate both the extra hours and the extra spending a job requires. Seeing the gap is the first step to deciding if it's worth it.

Job-related costs are any expenses you would not have if you didn't have this job. Common examples include commuting costs, work clothing, convenience food bought because you're too tired to cook, and stress-driven spending. Work-related subscriptions or tools you pay for out of pocket also count. WageReality groups these under "other job-related monthly spend" in the advanced options.

Decompression time is the time you need after work to recover before you can genuinely relax or be present for your own life. It's the gap between clocking out and actually feeling "off the clock." WageReality lets you set this from a quick self-check (Ready to go, Need downtime, or Drained) or adjust it manually. This time counts as a real cost of the job, even though no one pays you for it.

Yes, WageReality is completely free, with no sign-up, login, or account required. All calculations run in your browser using JavaScript; no financial data is sent to a server or stored anywhere. You can close the tab and nothing you entered is saved or transmitted.