TurboTax vs H&R Block vs FreeTaxUSA: Best for Gig Workers (2025)

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TL;DR: For most full-time gig workers earning $30,000–$80,000 in 1099 income, TurboTax Self-Employed is the easiest option but costs around $129 by the time you add state filing. H&R Block Self-Employed lands in the middle at roughly $115 with strong audit support. FreeTaxUSA is the budget pick at about $14.99 total — fully capable of handling Schedule C, SE tax, and quarterly payments, but with a much plainer interface. We compare all three on price, features, audit help, and the specific situations where each one wins.

If you drove for Uber, dashed for DoorDash, freelanced on Upwork, or sold on Etsy this year, you are about to face the most complicated tax return of your life. Self-employment tax. Schedule C. Mileage tracking. Quarterly estimates. The IRS gave you a $400 net-earnings threshold and from that dollar onward the rules apply in full. The good news is that 2025 software has gotten dramatically better at handling 1099 income — but they are not all created equal, and the price gap between the cheapest and the most expensive is more than 8x.

We spent a week running the same simulated return through TurboTax Self-Employed, H&R Block Self-Employed, and FreeTaxUSA. The simulated taxpayer was an Uber driver in California earning $52,000 gross, with 25,000 business miles, $1,800 in phone/supplies expenses, and a $5,000 quarterly tax already paid. Below is what we found, who each one fits best, and where we think most gig workers waste money on features they don't need.

How we picked these three

We started with the seven biggest names in U.S. self-employment tax software: TurboTax, H&R Block, FreeTaxUSA, TaxAct, Cash App Taxes, TaxSlayer, and Keeper Tax. After eliminating products that don't properly handle Schedule C with depreciation and SE tax (Cash App Taxes), products that have weaker mileage handling (TaxSlayer Self-Employed), and products that overlap heavily with one of the three we kept (TaxAct's gig-worker tier sits between TurboTax and FreeTaxUSA on price and features), we narrowed to TurboTax, H&R Block, and FreeTaxUSA — three software packages that cover the realistic range from premium guided experience to bare-bones DIY at one tenth the price.

A reasonable alternative we did not include in the head-to-head is Keeper Tax, which is built specifically around tracking deductions throughout the year rather than around April 15. We've covered Keeper separately in our review of the best gig-worker tax tools; for filing season comparisons it sits in a different category.

Quick comparison table

Feature	TurboTax Self-Employed	H&R Block Self-Employed	FreeTaxUSA
Federal filing	$129	$115	$0
State filing	$69	$50	$14.99
Total realistic cost	~$198	~$165	~$14.99
Schedule C support	Excellent	Excellent	Good
1099-NEC + 1099-K import	Auto from 50+ platforms	Auto from major payers	Manual entry
Mileage tracking integration	Stride, MileIQ, Everlance	Manual + import	Manual entry
Audit defense	Included on premium tier	Free Worry-Free Audit Support	Pay-as-you-need
Live CPA help	$50–$100 add-on	$80 add-on or free at office	Not available
Years in business	1984	1955	2001

The single biggest factor for most readers is the bottom row of that table. We will come back to when paying 13× more for TurboTax actually pays off and when it is throwing money away.

TurboTax Self-Employed: the polished default

Intuit's TurboTax has the largest market share for a reason. The interview-style flow walks you through every Schedule C line with plain-English questions ("Did you drive any miles for work in 2025?") and the software automatically pulls 1099-NEC and 1099-K forms from over 50 platforms — Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, Etsy, Upwork, Fiverr, eBay, and most major payment processors. For someone whose main fear is missing a form, TurboTax is the lowest-friction option.

What TurboTax does best is the deduction prompt: as you enter income from a particular platform, it suggests deductions specifically common to that platform. Enter Uber income and it asks about mileage, vehicle depreciation, the dashcam you bought, the phone mount, and the carwashes. Enter Etsy income and it asks about materials, shipping, Etsy fees, marketing, and home office space dedicated to crafting. This contextual prompting catches deductions even seasoned filers forget — in our test return it surfaced two deductions we had not initially planned to claim.

The Achilles heel is price. The Self-Employed federal tier is $129, state is another $69, and TurboTax aggressively upsells "Live Assisted" (a CPA review, $80 extra) and "Live Full Service" (a CPA does it for you, $389+). It is easy to start expecting to pay $129 and end up at $278. If you start a TurboTax Self-Employed return and watch carefully for upsell prompts, you can stay near the base price, but the software is engineered to nudge you up.

Best for: Multi-platform gig workers (e.g., Uber + DoorDash + Etsy) who value time more than money, first-time 1099 filers who want maximum hand-holding, and anyone with complex deductions like a home office plus vehicle plus equipment depreciation.

Skip if: Your situation is straightforward (one platform, standard mileage method, no home office) — you are paying for features you won't use.

H&R Block Self-Employed: the middle ground

H&R Block's Self-Employed package is the underrated middle option. At about $165 all-in (federal + state), it costs roughly 17% less than TurboTax while offering the same Schedule C and SE tax handling. The interview flow is slightly less polished than TurboTax — questions sometimes feel like they were translated from a CPA manual — but the substance is identical. Mileage entry, depreciation, asset tracking, home office calculations, and quarterly estimated payments are all there.

The killer feature for nervous filers is free Worry-Free Audit Support. If the IRS audits a return prepared with H&R Block Self-Employed within three years, an enrolled agent walks you through the audit at no cost. TurboTax offers similar coverage only as an upsell ($60+) and FreeTaxUSA offers nothing equivalent. For a 1099 filer making more than $50,000 in net income, audit risk is roughly 0.5–1.5% per year — small but not trivial — and Worry-Free Audit Support is worth $30–$60 of peace of mind included in the base price.

H&R Block's other quiet advantage is the option to walk into a physical office for help. If you start a return online and panic, you can hand it off to a tax pro at any of 9,000+ U.S. branches and they pick up exactly where you left off. TurboTax has no equivalent option short of paying $389+ for Live Full Service.

Best for: Gig workers who want a middle-ground price, people who specifically want audit protection, and anyone who might want to escalate to a human if the return gets confusing.

Skip if: You are confident DIY-ing and the audit support doesn't move the needle for you — you can save $150 by going with FreeTaxUSA.

FreeTaxUSA: the budget champion

FreeTaxUSA is the option seasoned freelancers tell first-timers about in private. Federal filing — including Schedule C and SE tax — is $0. State filing is $14.99. Total cost for a single-state return: $14.99. That is not a typo and not a limited promotion; it has been the price for years.

What you give up is interface polish. FreeTaxUSA looks like an early-2010s tax form — fields, dropdowns, a sober blue header. There are no cartoon characters, no celebratory animations when you finish a section, no chatbot suggesting deductions you might have missed. You navigate Schedule C the same way you would navigate the actual IRS form, just with calculations done for you. For a confident filer who already knows what they can deduct, that's a feature; for a first-timer, it can feel like working without a safety net.

The substance, though, is fully there. Schedule C with all 26 expense lines. Vehicle depreciation with both standard mileage and actual expense methods. Section 179. Home office (simplified or actual). 1099-NEC and 1099-K entry (manual; FreeTaxUSA does not auto-import from platforms). Quarterly estimated payment vouchers (1040-ES). E-file directly to the IRS. We ran our test return through FreeTaxUSA and got the same federal tax owed as TurboTax — to the dollar.

The accurate way to think about FreeTaxUSA is that you are paying $14.99 for a competent calculator and printer, not for a tax advisor. If you want advice — "should I take standard mileage or actual expense?" — you'll need to figure that out elsewhere (our mileage tracking guide covers this specifically). If you just need to file a return correctly and cheaply, FreeTaxUSA is unbeatable.

Best for: Repeat 1099 filers who already know their deduction strategy, anyone earning under $40,000 net where the price difference is meaningful, and budget-conscious side hustlers using gig work as a second income.

Skip if: You have never filed self-employed before and feel uncertain — the lack of guidance can lead to missed deductions that cost more than you saved.

Edge cases where one option clearly wins

You drove for multiple platforms (Uber + DoorDash + Instacart simultaneously): TurboTax Self-Employed wins. The auto-import from all three platforms saves an hour of data entry and reduces the chance of double-counting income from 1099-K vs 1099-NEC.

You're worried about an audit: H&R Block Self-Employed wins, because Worry-Free Audit Support is included free.

You're a low-income side hustler (under $5,000 in 1099 income): FreeTaxUSA wins. The $200 you'd pay TurboTax can easily exceed your federal tax owed.

You sold a vehicle this year that you used for rideshare: TurboTax wins on this one specific calculation. Vehicle disposition with mixed business/personal use is one of the harder Schedule C calculations, and TurboTax walks through it more clearly than the alternatives.

You have a home office and rent (not own) your apartment: It's a tie among the three. All correctly handle the simplified ($5/sq ft up to 300 sq ft) and actual-expense methods.

You're an LLC owner taking the S-corp election: None of these are ideal. You should be using a CPA or moving up to a higher tier (TurboTax Business or H&R Block Premium & Business), or hiring out. We don't recommend self-filing an S-corp 1120-S in your first year.

What about Keeper Tax?

We get this question often enough to answer directly. Keeper Tax is structured differently — it is a year-round deduction tracker that connects to your bank/card and automatically categorizes business expenses, then files a return at year-end. The annual subscription is around $192/year, which makes Keeper roughly equivalent in cost to TurboTax but spreads across 12 months. If you are bad at tracking expenses (and most gig workers are), Keeper finds deductions you'd otherwise miss — often $1,000+ worth in our experience. If you're already disciplined with a spreadsheet or app like Stride, Keeper is redundant.

We do not include Keeper in the head-to-head because it is solving a slightly different problem (year-round tracking) than the other three (April filing). For a comparison of trackers specifically, see our mileage tracking guide.

How to decide in 30 seconds

If your 1099 income is over $40,000 and you have multiple income sources, equipment, vehicle, or home office: pay for TurboTax Self-Employed or H&R Block Self-Employed. The extra $150 over FreeTaxUSA is genuinely worth it because the prompted deduction discovery typically finds $300–$1,000 in additional legitimate write-offs.

If your 1099 income is under $40,000, you have one or two simple income sources, you use standard mileage, and you've filed self-employed at least once before: FreeTaxUSA. You'll save $150–$185 vs the alternatives without missing anything material.

If you specifically want audit protection included: H&R Block.

Run your own numbers first

Before paying for any of these, plug your real numbers into a calculator that estimates what you'll actually owe. Knowing your tax liability before you start the filing software lets you sanity-check whatever number the software produces — if it's wildly different, something was entered wrong. Our free 1099 tax calculator gives you the same federal + state + SE tax breakdown all three software packages will eventually arrive at, in about 30 seconds and with no signup. We update it for the current IRS year (2025) including the $0.70 standard mileage rate and the QBI deduction.

A quarterly version is also worth bookmarking: see our guide on quarterly estimated tax payments for gig workers to make sure the April surprise stays small.

Whichever software you choose, file before the April 15 deadline (or the extension deadline if you've filed Form 4868), keep your supporting documents for at least three years, and pay any quarterly estimates on time to avoid underpayment penalties. Cheap, mid-range, and premium tax software all get you to the same final number — what they're competing on is how much hand-holding and audit protection you get along the way.