Full time contractor vs. employee, how much more expensive?

This is hard to have a generic statement about. But in general you should start around 1.5x-2x a standard salary.

The reality is people with minimal experience will have a harder time with this than someone with 10 years. That’s because employers will consider the two very different. Someone with 3 years of experience will not command the higher multiple, so 1.2x isn’t uncommon. But people with 10 years can work on a 2-5x multiple pretty easily (much more in some cases), especially if they have a specialty skill.

Just don’t underestimate the costs and plan that you will need to pay people to get advice. IMO I would say never accept less than 1.2x what the position would pay in salary.

And don’t fall for people saying you get all these deductions now etc when they are trying to negotiate you down. That’s generally someone trying to take advantage of you.

I founded, ran and sold more then one consulting group and it can be super lucrative but don’t underestimate the costs either. You have to market, travel to find work at times etc. That all has to come out of your fees.

Employee overhead is usually an additional 15%-20% of their salary (benefits, perks, etc). So if you are looking at doing the work as a contractor just add 25% onto what you would ask for as an employee: $100K turns into $125K

a quick-and-dirty rule of thumb is you should add 50% to a W-2 wage to find its comparable 1099 wage.> https://fearlesssalarynegotiation.com/contractor-vs-full-tim...