Job offer, or stay freelance? Compare the real numbers.
Health insurance, retirement contributions, and paid time off are broken out separately, since lumping them into one guessed "benefits" number usually hides the single biggest cost freelancers underestimate: health insurance.
Why health insurance gets its own line
Employer-sponsored health insurance is often the single largest hidden cost freelancers underestimate when comparing pay. The default figures here reflect real national averages, employers contribute roughly $7,900 a year toward single coverage on average, while an unsubsidized ACA marketplace benchmark plan runs about $6,000 a year nationally, though both vary significantly by age, location, and specific plan. Adjust either number if you know your actual figures.
What this still doesn't capture
Beyond the dollar figures, a job typically comes with unemployment insurance if you lose it, and often short and long-term disability coverage. Freelancing generally does not include either by default. These matter for risk, not just take-home pay, and are worth weighing alongside the numbers above, not instead of them.
If you're leaning toward freelancing, the true rate calculator can help you sanity-check whether the hourly rate you used here is realistic for your experience level and market.
About this calculator
How do I compare a salary to a freelance rate?
Not by dividing the salary by 2,080 hours. That ignores self-employment tax, the benefits an employer funds, and the fact that a large share of freelance hours are unbillable. A realistic freelance rate is usually 1.5 to 2.5 times the naive hourly equivalent of a salary you would accept.
What is a salary actually worth beyond the headline number?
Employer pension contributions, health cover, paid holiday, sick leave, equipment, and the employer half of payroll tax at 7.65 percent in the United States. Together these routinely add 20 to 40 percent on top of the stated salary, which is the gap this calculator makes visible.
Should I take the job or keep freelancing?
The money is only one input. Freelancing carries income risk, no paid leave and the full administrative load; employment carries less control over the work and a single point of failure for your income. Use the number here to make the financial part explicit, then weigh the rest deliberately rather than by feel.
Know the rate behind the number
Every calculation here starts from what you charge. If you have never worked out what that should be, the rate calculator does it from your real costs.
Work out my true rate