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Employee vs. Independent Contractor Comparison

Compare a W-2 employment offer with a 1099 contractor opportunity on taxes, benefits, business expenses, time off, and true effective hourly compensation, so you know how much you'd really need to earn on your own to come out ahead.

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Before You Begin

  • Results are estimates, for education only. This tool does not calculate an official tax liability, and it never determines whether a role is legally an employee or an independent-contractor position, that depends on the actual working relationship, not on either side's label.
  • Income-tax figures use your own estimated effective federal and state tax rate, applied the same way to both scenarios, so the comparison is apples-to-apples. Self-employment tax uses the real statutory formula.
  • Everything you enter stays in your own browser on this device. We don't send it to a server or store it on our end. Closing your browser's site data, or using "Clear my data" below, permanently deletes it.
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4What-If Scenarios

See how the comparison shifts under different assumptions.

A note on guardrails This tool never determines whether a position is legally an employee or independent-contractor role, and it never calculates an official tax liability. Every figure here is an estimate for education only, built from what you enter and your own stated tax-rate assumption. Classification depends on the actual working relationship and varies by state and by the specific facts involved, when in doubt, get professional guidance.