A new reciprocity formula for Dirichlet L-functions associated to an arbitrary primitive Dirichlet character of prime modulus q is established. We find an identity relating the fourth moment of individual Dirichlet L-functions in the t-aspect to the cubic moment of central L-values of Hecke–Maaß newforms of level at most $q^{2}$ and primitive central character $\psi ^{2}$ averaged over all primitive nonquadratic characters $\psi $ modulo q. Our formula can be thought of as a reverse version of recent work of Petrow–Young. Direct corollaries involve a variant of Iwaniec’s short interval fourth moment bound and the twelfth moment bound for Dirichlet L-functions, which generalise work of Jutila and Heath-Brown, respectively. This work traverses an intersection of classical analytic number theory and automorphic forms.