We hear all the time from drivers who think they can make more money as an independent contractor. Then we show them the math on all the expenses they’re forgetting.

Say the driver has a stat run that’s 70 miles round trip and takes two hours door to door. The IRS puts the full cost of operating a vehicle for business at 72.5 cents per mile for 2026, a figure that bundles gas, insurance, maintenance, repairs, and the depreciation of your car’s resale value. Seventy miles at 72.5 cents is $50.75. If the driver makes $65 for the stat run, that drops to $14.25 after expenses, or about $7 an hour. And that’s before accounting for self-employment tax.

We hire W-2 drivers, so yes, we’re biased. But we also talk to 1099 couriers every week, and the math below is the same math we walk through with them. Bring your own numbers and check the math. Working as an independent contractor isn’t as lucrative as you might think. 

What the per-job rate leaves out

Most 1099-versus-W-2 comparisons you’ll find online only list the upsides of contracting, like setting your own hours. Here’s what those comparisons miss. As a 1099 courier, you personally cover:

• Fuel for every mile, including the unpaid miles between jobs
• Insurance, and many personal auto policies exclude commercial use, so you may need a costlier commercial policy for claims to hold up
• Maintenance, repairs, tires, and the accelerated depreciation of high-mileage driving
• Both halves of Social Security and Medicare taxes, an extra 7.65% the employer would otherwise pay
• Quarterly estimated tax filings, and penalties if you get them wrong
• Liability if something goes wrong with a delivery
• Unpaid time: waiting for dispatch, deadheading home, sitting between runs

Your face-value hourly rate might look high, until you start subtracting all these costs.

Contractor vs W-2 driver: A full year of the math

Here’s an illustrative year. A full-time 1099 courier grossing $1,000 a week, the equivalent of $25 an hour, and driving 30,000 business miles, about 120 miles per working day. Next to it, a full-time W-2 driver at $18 an hour. The contractor’s headline rate is 39% higher. Watch what happens.

	1099 contractor	W-2 driver at Vital
Gross pay	$52,000 ($25/hr equivalent)	$37,440 ($18/hr) [confirm typical rate by market]
Vehicle costs (30,000 miles × 72.5¢)	–$21,750	$0
Self-employment / payroll tax*	–$4,274	–$2,864
Left over, before income tax	≈ $25,976	≈ $34,576
Overtime	None	Time and a half past 40 hours
Benefits	None	Available at full time [confirm details]
Guaranteed hours	None	Scheduled shifts

 

Self-employment tax of 15.3% applies to 92.35% of net earnings after expenses ($30,250 here). The W-2 figure is the employee’s 7.65% FICA share. 1099 pay structures vary widely: per piece, per mile, stat versus routine.

Read that bottom line again. The $25-an-hour contractor clears about $8,600 less per year than the $18-an-hour employee, before counting overtime, benefits, or a single slow week.

The costs nobody lists

Medical delivery adds expenses that general courier comparisons skip entirely. Specimens require handling training. Some loads need coolers, ice, and validated temperature control. Chain-of-custody standards aren’t optional. As a contractor, the training and the equipment are your problem and your expense. As a Vital employee, we train you and equip you.

There’s also a shift happening on the customer side. Hospitals and labs operate in a compliance environment, and more of them want their courier’s drivers to be trained, insured W-2 employees rather than anonymous contractors. That trend doesn’t just affect which companies win contracts. It affects how much 1099 work will even exist in this space a few years from now.

Flexibility cuts both ways

The best case for 1099 work is flexibility, and for some drivers in some situations, that trade is worth making. If you have low vehicle costs, your own book of clients, and the discipline to set aside taxes quarterly, contracting can work.

Just price the flexibility accurately. You can decline a job, and the company can decline to call you. A slow week for them is a small check for you. No sick days, no overtime, no floor under your income. W-2 flexibility is different. You get scheduled hours you can plan a life around, and at Vital, schedules built for full-timers and for people working around another job, school, or retirement.

Run your own numbers

Don’t take our word for it. Two weeks of honest tracking will tell you what you actually earn:

1. Log every business mile, including miles between jobs and back home.
2. Multiply total miles by 72.5 cents. That’s your real vehicle cost, per the IRS.
3. Subtract it from your gross pay for the period.
4. Subtract another 7.65% of what’s left for the employer-side payroll taxes you cover yourself.
5. Divide by every hour you worked, including waiting time.

That’s your true hourly rate. Compare it to a W-2 offer and decide with real numbers instead of a headline rate.

What W-2 driving at Vital looks like

Every Vital driver is a W-2 employee. They benefit from steady scheduled work, a paycheck with taxes already handled, time and a half past 40 hours, and benefits for full-timers. We train drivers for medical handling. If you run into issues, our dispatch team is here to answer the phone.

If you’re a 1099 courier who just ran the numbers above and didn’t like the answer, talk to us. We’re hiring in [confirm active markets]. Apply at [careers URL].

Drivers stay with us because we welcome everyone regardless of life circumstances and want to see them succeed. We often hear from applicants that Vital is the only company that called them back.

All our drivers are W-2 employees with a steady schedule, consistent paycheck, overtime, and benefits for full-timers. It’s honest work, and it’s not for everyone, but whether you’re looking for a full-time job or part-time work around another job or commitment, we want to talk to you.

Below is what working at Vital Delivery Solutions is actually like. The good parts, the hard parts, and the answers to questions most candidates are afraid to ask in an interview.

Every driver here is a W-2 employee

Most courier companies treat drivers as 1099 independent contractors. We don’t.

Every Vital driver is a W-2 employee with a predictable paycheck, taxes withheld, and overtime when the hours run long. Full-time drivers have access to benefits. [Confirm benefits: health coverage, PTO, anything else worth naming.]

The difference shows up fastest in your costs. As a 1099 courier, the gas, the insurance, the repairs, and the wear on your car all come out of your pocket.

Who drives for Vital

Walk through any of our locations and you’ll meet retirees stretching a fixed budget. Parents who need shifts that fit around a school schedule. People working a second job to cover what their first one doesn’t. People rebuilding after a layoff, a move, or a rough stretch.

A lot of new hires assume their situation makes them the odd one out. The retiree thinks he’s the only retiree. The driver supplementing another job thinks she’s the only one doing it. Then they meet the rest of the team. Different ages, different backgrounds, different reasons for being here, all doing the same work side by side. Whatever brought you to Vital, you’ll fit in just fine.

The work is real work

We’re going to be straight with you, because the drivers who thrive here are the ones who know what they were signing up for. Eight hours behind the wheel is a full day of work. You’re managing routes, time windows, and traffic, and at the end of it you’re tired.

Medical delivery also comes with rules. Specimens have handling requirements and some items move on ice. Chain of custody matters, and we train every driver to meet those standards before they carry their first sample.

Ultimately, a lab is waiting on what’s in your vehicle. A patient is waiting on the lab. Drivers who want more from a job than a paycheck tend to find that meaningful, and they tend to stay. Drivers who only want the paycheck usually move on, and we part as friends.

How managers treat drivers

Our hiring managers like giving people a shot. That sounds like a small thing until you’ve spent a month sending applications into the void. Once you’re in, the job is steady routes, clear expectations, and a manager who picks up the phone when something goes sideways on the road.

Plenty of delivery companies pay drivers $18 an hour and treat them like $18-an-hour employees: interchangeable, disposable, not worth knowing. We can’t run our business that way and we don’t want to.

Our drivers walk into hospitals, labs, and clinics wearing our name. To our customers, the driver is Vital Delivery Solutions. We treat the people doing that job accordingly.

Steady when you need steady, flexible when you need flexible

Some of our drivers want 40 hours, a dependable schedule, and benefits. We do our best to give it to them. Others need part-time hours that bend around another job, a class schedule, or a family. We support that too, and we don’t treat part-timers as second-class.

One more honest note. This is not a company with five rungs of management to climb, and most of our drivers aren’t looking for that. They want steady, predictable work at a place that treats them with respect. That said, people do move up here if they want that.

Answers to questions you might be afraid to ask

Candidates tell our recruiters they sometimes hold back questions in interviews because they’re worried the wrong question will cost them the job. So here are the real answers to common questions before you ever talk to us.

I have a gap in my work history. Is that a problem?

No. We care about whether you’re dependable now, and we’ve hired plenty of great drivers who were rebuilding after a rough stretch.

I only want 15 or 20 hours a week. Will you still hire me?

Yes. A large share of our team works part-time around another job or commitment.

I’m retired. Am I too old for this?

Not at all. Retirees are some of our most reliable drivers, and you won’t be the only one.

Is it okay if this is a bridge while I figure out what’s next?

Yes, and we’d rather you tell us. Some people stay a year. Some stay fifteen. Both are fine.

What happens if something goes wrong on a route?

You call, and someone answers. Dispatch and your manager help you solve it.

Do I need my own vehicle?

No, we have a fleet of vehicles and you don’t need to worry about gas, maintenance, or insurance on your own car.

Talk to us

If steady work, honest management, and a job that matters to patients sounds like your kind of fit, we’d like to hear from you. We’re hiring in [confirm active markets: Boston, Burlington, others]. Apply at [careers URL], and we’ll be in touch.