About

About Gig Worker Tools

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

Every dollar a gig app shows you has gas, mileage, and taxes hiding inside it. This site exists to show you the real number — the one you actually keep after the road and the IRS take their cut.

Why this site exists

It started with a tax-season surprise.

My son drove for the gig apps. Like a lot of 1099 workers, he found out the hard way that the number on the screen at the end of a shift isn’t the number that lands in your bank account — and definitely isn’t the number the IRS lets you keep. The first tax season hit like a truck.

There was plenty of advice online, but almost none of it answered the only question that mattered to him: okay, so what do I actually owe, and what do I actually make? Just vague percentages and articles that were really ads for tax software.

So I started building the tools I wished he’d had on day one — the ones that give you a plain number you can act on.

Who’s behind the math

A finance background, pointed at a real problem.

I go by Tanstaafl — the acronym at the top of this page. I spent 40 years on Wall Street and building businesses, working with numbers that were a lot bigger and a lot more complicated than a delivery driver’s quarterly taxes. Turns out the fundamentals are the same: know what comes in, know what goes out, and never confuse revenue with what you keep.

I’m not a CPA and I’m not a tax attorney. What I bring is decades of reading financial rules for a living and a stubborn habit of showing my work — so you can see exactly how a number was reached instead of taking it on faith.

Why you can trust the numbers

Built honest, on purpose.

  • Cross-checked against current IRS figures. The calculators use the mileage rates, self-employment tax, and thresholds that apply right now — not stale numbers copied from a three-year-old blog post.
  • The math is shown, not hidden. You see how the estimate is built, so you can sanity-check it against your own situation.
  • Free alternatives get named. When there’s a genuinely cheaper or free way to do something, the guides say so — even when it costs a referral. If a recommendation only ever points to the priciest option, that’s marketing, not help.
  • The tools stay free. The calculators cost nothing and always will. That’s the whole point.

Start here

The calculators.

Three free tools that turn “I have no idea” into a number you can plan around.

Take-Home Pay

What you actually keep

See your real hourly rate after gas, mileage, and taxes come out.

 Quarterly Taxes

What to set aside

Estimate your quarterly tax so April never blindsides you again.

 Mileage Deduction

What your miles are worth

Find out how much your business miles knock off your tax bill.

See what you actually keep.

All the tools in one place — no signup, no cost.

Browse all calculators

A necessary note: Gig Worker Tools provides general educational information and estimates, not tax, legal, or financial advice. Every situation is different. Before you make a decision that affects your taxes or your business, confirm it with a licensed tax professional or attorney.