How to calculate your real hourly rate with unpaid time
Add your unpaid hours to your contracted hours to see what you earn for each hour you work.
Your real hourly rate with unpaid time is your salary divided by every hour you work, including documentation and overtime done off the clock. Two therapy jobs with the same salary can pay very different rates per hour worked once those unpaid hours are counted.
The real hourly rate calculator does the arithmetic below from five inputs. The figures on this page are worked examples with no currency attached, so use your own salary in your own currency.
How to calculate your real hourly rate with unpaid time
Nominal hourly = annual salary ÷ contracted annual hours
Real hourly = annual salary ÷ (contracted annual hours + unpaid annual hours)
It is also called the effective hourly rate. Contracted annual hours is your contracted hours per week multiplied by the weeks you work in a year. Unpaid annual hours is your unpaid minutes per day, multiplied by days per week and working weeks, divided by 60.
Which hours to divide by
The calculator uses contracted hours per week × working weeks per year, and you can change both. Its default is 40 × 46 = 1,840 hours. The 46 is this site's assumption for the weeks you work after leave and holidays. If you take four weeks of leave and work 40 hours in each of the other 48 weeks, your figure is 40 × 48 = 1,920.
You will also see 2,080 hours, which is 40 × 52. It is a common convention for working out an hourly rate. The US federal government uses 2,080 as its full-time work year, and it divides annual pay by 2,087 to set federal hourly rates.
The two bases answer different questions. Dividing by 2,080 counts paid leave weeks as contracted hours, so it spreads your pay across all 52 weeks. Dividing by the weeks you work gives pay per hour you work, which is the figure that unpaid time eats into. On 2,080 hours, a salary of 85,000 is 40.87 an hour. On 1,840 hours it is 46.20. Use one basis for every job you compare.
Worked example
Example: a salary of 85,000, 40 contracted hours a week and 46 working weeks. On top of that, 25 minutes a day of documentation is done off the clock, five days a week.
- Contracted hours: 40 × 46 = 1,840
- Nominal hourly: 85,000 ÷ 1,840 = 46.20
- Unpaid hours: 25 × 5 × 46 ÷ 60 = 95.8
- Real hours worked: 1,840 + 95.8 = 1,935.8
- Real hourly: 85,000 ÷ 1,935.8 = 43.91
The difference is 2.29 an hour. At the nominal rate, the 95.8 unpaid hours are worth about 4,427 a year, which is work you do and aren't paid for. That is 2.4 unpaid working weeks a year.
Comparing two offers on the same basis
Example: Job A pays 85,000 with 25 minutes of unpaid documentation a day. Job B pays 81,000, and documentation happens on the clock. Both are 40 hours a week for 46 weeks.
| Job A | Job B | |
|---|---|---|
| Salary | 85,000 | 81,000 |
| Hours worked | 1,935.8 | 1,840 |
| Real hourly | 43.91 | 44.02 |
Job B pays 4,000 less a year and pays slightly more for each hour worked. Commuting time and benefits can move the ranking further. Compare both offers on the same basis before deciding.
The productivity target connection
Unpaid documentation can start with a target that leaves too little paid time for notes. You can estimate whether a job will produce unpaid hours before you accept it by asking two questions at interview. What is the productivity target, and does documentation happen on the clock?
Example: the target is 90% and documentation is on the clock. On a 450-minute paid day, that leaves 45 minutes for everything that isn't treatment, documentation included. If your notes take 60 minutes, the other 15 come out of your own time. Over five days and 46 weeks, that is 57.5 unpaid hours a year.
The documentation time calculator works out your own share, and unpaid documentation time covers the problem itself.
Adding overtime that never gets claimed
Include any regular unpaid time beyond documentation: staying to finish a treatment, arriving early to set up, weekend catch-up.
Total unpaid hours = (documentation minutes + other unpaid minutes) × days × weeks ÷ 60
Example: an extra 15 minutes a day on top of the 25 already counted makes 40 unpaid minutes a day. That is 153.3 unpaid hours a year, and the rate falls to 85,000 ÷ 1,993.3 = 42.64, which is 3.55 below nominal.
What the law says about unpaid time (US)
This figure is for your own decisions, such as whether to take a job or raise unpaid time with a manager. It also shows whether the extra 4,000 in an offer is real. It doesn't establish a claim or what you are owed. This is general information, not legal or employment advice.
In the US, work that an employer suffers or permits counts as work time, even if nobody asked for it. Whether that time must be paid as overtime depends on whether you are exempt. A non-exempt employee must receive at least one and a half times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek.
The US learned professional exemption needs two things: duties that meet the duties test, and a salary of at least $684 a week. Job titles do not decide exemption status, and physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech-language pathology are not named in the rule. Outside the US, your country's working-time rules and your contract decide. A union, a professional association or an employment lawyer can tell you where you stand.
Including the commute
In the US, normal travel from home to work is not worktime, even for someone who works at different job sites. The commute is still time the job costs you, so it belongs in a comparison between two offers.
Example: an extra 20 minutes each way is 40 minutes a day. Across five days and 46 weeks, that is 153.3 hours a year. On a salary of 85,000, with the 95.8 hours of documentation also counted, the real rate falls from 43.91 to 85,000 ÷ 2,089.2 = 40.69 an hour. In this example, the job with the shorter commute is worth 3.22 an hour more before any salary difference.
Benefits that change the picture
Salary alone understates the difference between offers. Convert the benefits worth the most into cash and add them to salary before dividing by hours. Examples include an employer retirement contribution, health insurance, a paid continuing education (CEU) allowance, license renewal fees and professional liability insurance.
Example: suppose Job B offers a CEU allowance of 2,000 and a 5% retirement contribution on its 81,000 salary (4,050), and Job A offers neither. Together they are worth 6,050 a year, which is more than the 4,000 salary gap between Job A and Job B.
Using the figure well
Shown to an employer, this figure can read as a complaint about salary. Your productivity and documentation figures point at causes an employer can fix, such as the target or the time allowed for notes.
It is useful when you weigh a move, and when a recruiter asks what you are looking for. With your own figure worked out, you can check an offer against it in a minute.
Rerunning it every year
Salaries rise slowly and unpaid time can rise without anyone noticing, so the rate per hour worked can fall while the headline salary goes up.
Example: a 3% raise on 85,000 is worth 2,550. An extra ten minutes a day of documentation is 38.3 hours a year (10 × 5 × 46 ÷ 60). At 46 an hour, that is 1,763 of the raise gone.
Run the real hourly rate calculator again at each annual review. If your hours change through the year, the weekly timesheet calculator gives you a weekly total to start from.