Home > Career > Freelance vs Full-time
See what the numbers mean. Learn how the comparison works. Leave with a wider view of the decision.
Enter your full-time salary and your freelance rate for the same city. We adjust for self-employment tax, employer benefits value, and unpaid time off.
Freelance vs Full-time is a decision-making model, not a tax calculator. It estimates the relative value of each path using published tax data plus clearly stated modeling assumptions.
⚠ Estimates only, not tax advice — see the note below the results for details.
Estimate only — not financial, legal, or investment advice.
Each line already includes every adjustment above it — this isn't a list to add up. Compare using the bottom line only.
Estimates only, not tax advice. Uses 2026 federal brackets plus an approximate state rate, employee FICA (6.2% Social Security up to the wage base + 1.45% Medicare), and self-employment tax (15.3% on 92.35% of net earnings, with the standard half-deduction). Freelance revenue should be entered at full working capacity (as if you worked every available working day); unpaid time off then values each day off at that year's average after-tax, after-benefits daily rate, so the deduction stays on the same real-terms scale as the rest of the comparison. If your entered revenue is your actual realized billings (already net of time off taken), set unpaid days off to 0 to avoid double-counting.
Freelance vs Full-time takes one salary and one freelance rate and runs each through four stages to estimate its real-terms value, per year.
Full-time is simply your annual salary. Freelance revenue should be entered as what you'd bill working all your available working days (before subtracting time off — that happens in stage 4), minus deductible business expenses — software, a coworking desk, equipment — since those never reach your pocket either way.
Full-time income is taxed at ordinary income tax rates, plus the employee share of payroll tax (Social Security and Medicare). Freelance net earnings carry self-employment tax on top of income tax, since a freelancer covers both the employee and employer share of payroll tax.
An employer's health insurance subsidy and retirement match are real money — we add their annual value to the full-time total. A freelancer has to buy the equivalent out of pocket, so we subtract self-funded health insurance and retirement contributions instead.
Full-time paid time off is already baked into the salary, so nothing changes here. Freelance revenue above is entered at full working capacity, so a freelancer's day off is unpaid — we value each one at that year's average after-tax, after-benefits daily rate and subtract it from the total, keeping the deduction on the same real-terms scale as the rest of the comparison. If you'd rather enter your actual realized annual billings (already net of days you didn't work), set unpaid days off to 0 to avoid double-counting that time.
A few terms worth knowing before you compare — this site is built to help you see the fuller picture, not just crunch numbers.
Quick check
Think you've got these 3 terms down?
A few more angles worth exploring — the numbers above are only part of the full picture.
No. Freelance vs Full-time gives a directional estimate to help you think through a decision, not a substitute for a tax professional or accountant. Actual tax liability depends on deductions, filing status, and business structure that a general calculator can't capture.
We currently support the same set of major US cities as our other calculators. Use the "View supported cities" button at the top of the page for the full list.
An employer normally pays half of an employee's Social Security and Medicare contributions without it ever touching the paycheck. A self-employed person has no employer, so they cover both halves themselves through self-employment tax.
We use the monthly cost of employer-subsidized health insurance and the employer's retirement match percentage, both of which you enter directly, since these vary widely by employer and aren't public data the way tax brackets are.
A full-time employee's paid time off is already part of their salary, so taking it costs nothing extra. A freelancer earns nothing on a day they don't bill, so we convert each unpaid day into its dollar cost using their average after-tax, after-benefits daily rate, keeping it on the same real-terms scale as the rest of the comparison. This assumes the revenue you entered is your full-capacity billings (as if you worked every available day) — if you instead entered your actual realized annual revenue already net of time off, set unpaid days off to 0 so time off isn't subtracted twice.
Your inputs are only used in your browser to calculate a result. If you use the "Copy shareable link" button, your inputs are encoded directly into that URL — nothing is stored on a server.
Tax-year data: 2026