Why "true hourly wage" is the number that matters
Plenty of side-hustle calculators do gross − expenses = profit and call it a day. That hides the two things that actually decide whether a hustle is worth it: taxes and unpaid time.
Surveys consistently find that freelancers can only bill 50–70% of the hours they actually work. The rest goes to admin, marketing, client emails, sourcing and photographing products, packing, and — for drivers — the "deadhead" miles between gigs. None of that is paid, but all of it is time the hustle costs you. Divide your real take-home by all of those hours and the picture often looks very different from the rate on the app.
How this calculator works
- Gross revenue = earnings + tips, normalized to a year.
- Direct expenses = platform fees + processing fees + cost of goods + materials + supplies + subscriptions.
- Vehicle cost = standard mileage (miles × the IRS rate) or actual expenses (gas + maintenance + depreciation + insurance) — we suggest whichever lowers your taxable profit, and you can override it.
- Net profit = gross − direct expenses − vehicle cost.
- Self-employment tax = 15.3% of 92.35% of net profit; income tax is estimated on top of any day-job income using federal and state brackets.
- Take-home profit = net profit − SE tax − income tax.
- True hourly wage = take-home ÷ (paid + unpaid + idle hours), shown beside the naive take-home ÷ paid-hours rate so the gap is obvious.
Tax figures use the same engine as our Quarterly Tax Calculator. With more than one hustle, total tax is figured on your combined net profit and split across hustles in proportion to each one's profit.
For drivers: deadhead miles and idle time
Rideshare and delivery pay looks great by the trip, but the miles and minutes between trips are unpaid. This calculator tracks total miles and unpaid/deadhead miles separately, applies the $0.725/mile 2026 standard rate (or your actual gas-and-wear costs), and lets you add online-but-idle time so your true hourly wage reflects the whole shift — not just the minutes with a passenger or order in the car.
For sellers: the hidden labor of listing and shipping
On Etsy, eBay, or Poshmark, the platform fee is the easy part. The real drain is the unpaid hours spent sourcing inventory, photographing and writing listings, answering buyers, and packing and shipping orders. Enter those hours and watch your "$30/hour flipping" become something more honest. Every preset starts with typical fee percentages and time estimates you can adjust to your shop.
Frequently asked questions
- What's the difference between the two hourly numbers?
- The big number is your true hourly wage — take-home divided by every hour the hustle costs. The smaller "on-task" rate divides the same take-home by only your paid hours. The gap is the unpaid time tax.
- Does it really run entirely in my browser?
- Yes. Nothing is sent to a server, and there's no account. The "copy link" button encodes your inputs into the URL itself so you can save or share a scenario without us ever seeing it.
- Can I compare several hustles at once?
- Yes — use "Add another hustle" to stack as many as you like. You'll get each one's true hourly wage plus a blended rate and total annual take-home across all of them.
- Are the preset numbers accurate for me?
- They're reasonable starting estimates based on typical fees and time, not gospel. Edit every field to match your own situation — that's when the answer gets useful.