What does your commute really cost?
Do you know how much our commute actually costs you? Most people don't realize it, but the aggregate cost of going into an office costs more than money - it costs a shocking amount of time, energy, and toll on your health.
Here's the most expensive cost that's not coming out of your bank account
The average American spends about 27 minutes getting to work each direction. Five days a week, that's well over 200 hours a year behind the wheel or on public transit. And that's before you count the time spent getting ready, the parking, and the coffee you bought because you were already out. It never really gets added up, so we did it for you.
Every hidden cost that you don't think about
Driving is priced at $4.00 a gallon and 25 mpg (which is generous, because it's much higher than that in many places). Plus, $0.20 a mile for wear and tear on tires, brakes, servicing and depreciation. Then we add parking and whatever you spend on food and coffee because you were out.
Five days in the office becomes 245 commuting days a year (subtracting vacation and holidays). Time is your door-to-desk minutes doubled, plus the extra getting-ready time, and we translate it into what it's worth at your own hourly rate.
📍Vienna, Austria
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Commuting taxes more than your wallet
There's A LOT of research on the health cost of commuting, but nobody knows it. People commuting about an hour a day need roughly 40% more pay to feel as satisfied as someone with no commute at all. Car commutes over 30 minutes one way significantly increase your odds of daily stress. Past 45 minutes and you start seeing increases of poor sleep and exhaustion. And...commutes over about 15 miles are linked to higher blood pressure and BMI.
None of that hits your bank account, so you typically just caffeinate through it. Every figure is taken from the studies listed at the bottom of this page.
📍Budapest, Hungary
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A fully-remote job is a raise
Take the average result of Beach Commuters: $6,115 out of pocket and 368 hours a year. That cash is a $6K raise the day you stop going into an office. The hours are 9.2 full working weeks, worth about $16K at a $43/hr rate. Stack them and a remote role quietly pays you around $22K more than the same salary with a commute attached.
📍Bruges, Belgium
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Get the job that let's you work wherever you want
You know what the commute costs. The Remote Job Matcher takes your skills, matching titles and experience, and finds you the job that best matches YOU, and lets you work where you want. Not hybrid. Not "remote within 50 miles of HQ." Work from anywhere, full stop.
Commute Calculator FAQ
Where the numbers come from
- Stutzer & Frey (2008). Stress that Doesn't Pay: The Commuting Paradox. Scandinavian Journal of Economics.
- Hoehner et al. (2012). Commuting Distance, Cardiorespiratory Fitness, and Metabolic Risk. American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
- Hansson et al. (2011). Relationship between commuting and health outcomes in southern Sweden. BMC Public Health.
- Sandow (2014). Til Work Do Us Part: The Social Fallacy of Long-distance Commuting. Urban Studies.
- UK Office for National Statistics (2014). Commuting and Personal Well-being.
- U.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey — mean travel time to work.
Stop paying to go to work.
Run the calculator, take the number, and let the Remote Job Matcher find the fully-remote role that makes it disappear.