Salary & income · 2 min
Side income arrives pre-flattered: the revenue is visible, the hours are not, and the taxman takes his cut at your highest rate, not your average one. This instrument computes what the project actually pays per hour of your evenings — and holds it against what your main hour is already worth.
What the project brings in, before anything.
Tools, hosting, materials, ads — what the revenue costs to exist.
Including the thinking in the shower and the Sunday admin.
Side income stacks on top of your salary, so it's taxed at your highest rate — not your average.
Sets the hour you're comparing against.
Everything is calculated in your browser as you type. Nothing you enter is sent or stored, and no account is needed.
A hobby priced as one.
$37 / h
what the side project nets per hour of your evenings
| Side profit before tax, monthly | — |
| After tax at the margin | — |
| Net per hour of your evenings | — |
| Your main job's effective hourly | — |
| The annual difference it makes | — |
| If the margin is | Net per hour | vs your main hour |
|---|---|---|
| — | — | — |
| — | — | — |
| — | — | — |
The hours are always undercounted. The invoice took an hour; the client took six. Re-run with hours ×1.5 and see if the verdict survives.
A cheap hourly can still be the right project — if it compounds. An audience, a product, a skill that raises your main rate: those pay later at rates this table can't see.
The hidden cost is recovery. Evenings spent producing are evenings not spent recovering, and a tired main job eventually bills you for the difference.
Everything below is calculated from your inputs. Nothing is fetched, nothing is looked up.
side_hourly = (revenue − costs) × (1 − marginal_tax) / hours
main_hourly = main_net / (main_hours × 46)
gauge = side_hourly / main_hourly
The gauge reads the side hour against your main hour, parity at 100%. The house bands: past parity, the project is a raise; between 50% and parity, a fair trade if you enjoy it; under 50%, a hobby priced as one — which is allowed, as long as it knows what it is.
Limitations. Marginal tax treatment of side income varies by jurisdiction and structure; deductions can soften the rate this model applies flatly. Compounding assets — audience, IP, equity — are worth more than their current hourly and are deliberately outside the arithmetic.