The contractor’s bill climbs with every day bought; the loaded employee year doesn’t care. The crossing is the workload where hiring starts to win. Hover to explore.
The employee’s real year is base × (1 + burden) plus seat overhead — and the honest unit is the per-productive-day figure: that total over roughly 230 working days times the productive share, because leave, training and internal load are paid but don’t ship. The contractor costs the day rate times only the days you’d actually buy. With the ramp chip on, the employee’s first months bill half-productive and your management hours are priced at your rate — the two costs the salary line never shows.
Retention, institutional knowledge and equity upside argue for the employee; flexibility and instant seniority argue for the contractor — none of it prices into a year-one number. And one legal note that isn’t optional: a “contractor” who works like an employee — your hours, your tools, your direction, indefinitely — is an employee in the IRS’s and many states’ eyes (California’s ABC test is the strict version), and misclassification bills arrive with penalties attached. The instrument prices the year; classification is a lawyer’s morning.
employee year = salary × (1 + burden) + seat overhead
per productive day = employee year ÷ (230 × productive share)
contractor year = day rate × days bought
+ ramp: months × loaded/12 × 0.5 + management hours × your rate