Your app shows gross earnings — but after gas, mileage, expenses and self-employment tax, what do you really make per hour? Find out. ✓ 2026 mileage rate
Real take-home per hour
Rideshare and delivery apps advertise gross earnings, but your car does a lot of unpaid work. This calculator subtracts the real costs: the IRS standard mileage rate (about 70¢/mile) — which covers gas, maintenance, insurance and depreciation — plus your other expenses and a self-employment tax set-aside (15.3% of net profit). What's left, divided by hours, is your true hourly wage.
Drivers are often surprised: a $900 week over 40 hours looks like $22.50/hr, but after 500 miles of driving and SE tax it can fall well below $15. Tracking your miles is also valuable at tax time — the mileage deduction usually beats deducting actual costs. Estimate only; not tax advice.
A gig or freelance rate is not comparable to an employee wage until three adjustments are made. Self-employment tax adds 15.3% on 92.35% of net earnings, roughly double the employee share, because you pay both halves. Unbillable time — admin, invoicing, marketing, finding the next client — commonly consumes 20–40% of working hours and earns nothing. And there is no paid leave, no employer retirement match and no subsidised health insurance. The realistic conversion is that a freelance rate must be roughly 1.4–1.6 times an employee hourly rate to deliver equivalent value.
Gross = Billable rate × Billable hoursSE tax = Gross × 92.35% × 15.3%Effective hourly = (Gross − SE tax − income tax − expenses) ÷ TOTAL hours workedEmployee-equivalent rate ≈ freelance rate ÷ 1.4 to 1.6where:
Assumptions: Half of self-employment tax is deductible above the line, which softens the burden slightly. Health insurance premiums are deductible for the self-employed, and a solo 401(k) allows substantial retirement contributions.
Convert a freelance rate into a genuine effective hourly wage.
Result$65/hour bills out at about $28.57 of genuine effective hourly pay
The 56% gap comes from three places: 880 unbillable hours, the employer half of FICA, and no benefits. To match a $45/hour employee package including benefits, the freelance rate would need to be closer to $95 — which is why underpricing is the most common freelance mistake.