Take-Home Pay Calculator

By the · Last updated September 16, 2026

✅ Current for tax year 2026

“How much do I actually keep?” is a different question from “how much tax do I owe” — it starts from your gross revenue, not your net profit. This calculator answers it directly: enter what you billed and what you spent, and see what’s actually yours.

How to use it

• Gross self-employment revenue — everything you were paid before any expenses come out.
• Business expenses — your real costs: software, mileage, supplies, home office, anything ordinary and necessary for the work. Not sure what counts? See the full deductions list.

The calculator subtracts your expenses to get net income, then runs that through the same self-employment and federal income tax rules used across this site.

Why take-home pay surprises people

A $90,000 freelance year and a $90,000 salary don’t leave you with the same amount in your pocket. As a 1099 worker, you’re paying both halves of Social Security and Medicare yourself — money a W-2 employer would otherwise split with you. That’s the single biggest reason self-employed take-home pay is lower than the sticker number suggests, before you’ve spent a dollar of it.

Curious about the W-2 comparison directly?

If you’re specifically weighing a 1099 rate against a W-2 salary offer, the 1099 vs. W-2 calculator runs the identical income both ways side by side.

A quick example

Say you billed $85,000 in 2026 and had $18,000 in real business expenses — software, mileage, a portion of your home office, and a laptop. Net income is $67,000. After self-employment tax (roughly $9,470) and federal income tax on the remainder, take-home often lands somewhere in the high $40,000s to low $50,000s, depending on filing status and any additional deductions like retirement contributions. That’s a meaningfully different number than the $85,000 you billed — and a common trap for new freelancers who budget against the top-line figure instead of what actually clears.

What this number doesn’t include

This calculator estimates federal self-employment and income tax only. It doesn’t subtract state income tax, which varies enormously — some states have none, others take a meaningful bite on top of the federal number shown here. It also doesn’t account for health insurance premiums you pay out of pocket, which reduce your AGI but aren’t a business expense in the traditional sense, or retirement contributions, which lower your tax bill further but aren’t spending you’d enter as a “business expense.” For a more complete picture, see how these factor into the full deduction list.

Billed vs. collected

This calculator assumes the revenue you enter is money you’ve actually received, not just invoiced. If clients pay late or a project falls through, don’t count that income until it lands — most self-employed filers use cash-basis accounting, meaning the IRS taxes income you’ve actually received, not income you’re still waiting on.

Adjusting mid-year

If a slow quarter or a big new client changes your income significantly, rerun this calculator with updated numbers rather than relying on a January estimate all year. Take-home pay calculated from January’s assumptions can be meaningfully wrong by October if your revenue or expenses shifted — and catching that early is easier than adjusting in April.

Comparing multiple income scenarios

If you’re deciding between two potential contracts or clients at different rates, run each one through this calculator separately rather than trying to compare gross rates directly. A higher gross rate with substantially more required expenses — more driving, more equipment, more software — can sometimes produce lower actual take-home pay than a slightly lower rate with minimal overhead. Comparing the real net numbers, not just the headline rate, is the only way to know which opportunity is actually worth more to you.

Keep reading

• Self-employment tax calculator — see just the SE tax portion on its own.
• Tax deduction calculator — see exactly what specific deductions are worth.