TurboTax Self-Employed Cost in 2026 and What Replaced It

There is no longer a product called TurboTax Self-Employed. Intuit merged that tier into TurboTax Premium, which is $139 for federal with state charged separately, and Premium is now the cheapest do-it-yourself TurboTax product that files a full Schedule C. The tier below it, Deluxe at $79, covers the income portion of a business but not the entire schedule, and TurboTax Free Edition cannot file self-employment income at all. So the practical answer to what TurboTax Self-Employed costs in 2026 is $139 plus a state return, and the honest follow-up is that several products file the same Schedule C for between $0 and $89.

Is there still a TurboTax Self-Employed?

No. Intuit retired the name and folded the product into TurboTax Premium, which now serves both self-employed filers and investors under one label. If you filed with TurboTax Self-Employed a few seasons ago and went looking for it again, Premium is the shelf it moved to. The same applies to the assisted versions: the old Live Self-Employed tier is now sold as the Live or Expert Assist version of Premium.

This matters more than a rename usually would, because roughly 2,400 people a month still search for the old product by name. If you are pricing your options from memory, or from an article written before the change, you are pricing something that no longer exists. Premium's own page describes it as "taxes done right for self-employed and investors" and lists "Profit or Loss from Business (Entire Schedule)" among the forms it covers, which is the line that actually matters for a 1099 filer.

How much does TurboTax cost for self-employed filers in 2026?

Prices below were checked on Intuit's own product pages during the 2026 season. Intuit labels them anticipated final, undiscounted prices for tax year 2025 and runs early-season discount banners, so filing in January or February is normally cheaper than filing in April. State returns are extra on every do-it-yourself tier except where noted.

Read the state column as part of the price, not as a footnote. A Premium federal return at $139 with one state added lands most self-employed filers close to $200 before anything unusual happens. If you worked in more than one state during the year, each additional state return is charged again, and the arithmetic on that is covered in multi-state tax filing.

Why TurboTax Free Edition will not work for 1099 income

This is the single most useful fact for anyone with a 1099, and it is buried in the fine print rather than stated on the pricing grid. Intuit's own eligibility wording for Free Edition is "simple Form 1040 returns only (no forms or schedules except as needed to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, student loan interest, and Schedule 1-A)." Intuit says roughly 37 percent of taxpayers qualify.

Schedule C is not on that list. Self-employment income requires Schedule C and Schedule SE, so a freelancer, contractor, driver or creator essentially never qualifies for Free Edition no matter how small the income was. If you earned $900 on one 1099-NEC and nothing else, you still need a paid tier at TurboTax. That is the moment most people go looking for alternatives, and it is a reasonable moment to look.

The same trap catches people who start in Free Edition and get upgraded partway through. Nothing is wrong with the software, it is just that the return you are entering stopped being a simple 1040 the second you typed in a 1099-NEC. If you are not sure which category your income falls into, the difference between 1099 and W-2 income sets out which forms each one drags along with it.

Cheaper alternatives that still file a Schedule C

Every product below files a full Schedule C. Prices were verified on each vendor's own pages during the 2026 season. The right pick depends far more on how many state returns you need than on the federal headline.

Two of these are cheaper than TurboTax on the federal line and then get more expensive than TurboTax once your situation grows. Cash App Taxes is $0 until you have two states, at which point it cannot file your return at any price. Keeper is $199 until you have three states, at which point it doubles. Neither is a criticism, they are just the edges you want to find in October rather than on April 14th.

What does TurboTax Premium actually get you over the cheaper options?

Import breadth and interview polish, mostly. TurboTax has the widest set of direct connections to payroll providers, brokerages and banks, which genuinely saves time if your year has a lot of documents in it. The interview is the best written in the category. For an investor with a long brokerage statement and a side business, that combination is worth paying for.

What it does not do is the reconciliation work that decides most self-employed tax bills. A platform 1099 frequently reports a gross figure that never matched your bank deposits, because the platform took its cut first. Enter the form as printed without checking it and you either pay tax on money you never received or you deduct the same fee twice. No amount of import polish catches that, because the import is faithfully copying a number that is correct on the form and wrong for your Schedule C.

If you invoice clients directly, the check is easier than it sounds: total what your clients actually paid you during the year and compare it to the forms. Pulling those figures off a stack of PDFs is quick if you extract the invoice data into a spreadsheet first, and the difference between that total and your 1099s is the number worth understanding before you file anything.

Is TurboTax Self-Employed worth it?

It is worth it if your return is document-heavy and you value the import connections and the interview enough to pay a premium of roughly $50 to $139 over the alternatives above. That is a real thing to value, and plenty of people happily pay it every year.

It is not worth it if your situation is one 1099 and a mileage log. At that shape, the software is not doing anything the $0 and $25 products cannot, and the money is better spent on getting the deductions right. The gap between a return that claims the deductions you qualify for and one that does not is routinely larger than the entire price difference between every product on this page. That is the part worth shopping for, and it is what an AI tax deduction finder is for.

One more thing to check before you commit: whether you are being sold a tier you do not need. Deluxe at $79 sounds like the sensible middle option, but it does not file the entire Schedule C, so a self-employed filer who buys it will be upgraded to Premium partway through and pay the difference anyway. The full lineup and what each tier includes is broken down in the TurboTax pricing guide.

How much do drivers and gig workers pay?

Less than the sticker price, if they claim what they are entitled to. Uber publishes a discount for its drivers and couriers of 25 percent off TurboTax Premium federal, rising to 50 percent for Diamond drivers, claimed from the driver dashboard or the Uber Pro hub rather than from TurboTax. That takes Premium federal to about $104 at the standard discount, and the state return is still charged at full price, which is the part the offer does not mention. The comparison for drivers specifically is worked through in the TurboTax guide for Uber drivers.

For everyone else driving or delivering, the deduction that moves the number is mileage rather than the software choice. 2026 has two standard mileage rates, split at midyear, and the standard mileage rate page has both. A driver with a proper log routinely turns a four-figure tax bill into a much smaller one, which no discount code can match.

Which product should you actually pick?

Work down these in order and stop at the first one that fits.

1. One state, comfortable filing from a phone, simple 1099 income. Cash App Taxes at $0 will file it, Schedule C included.
2. Two or more states on a budget. Jackson Hewitt Online at $25 flat with state included is the cheapest way through.
3. You want the documents read and reconciled rather than typed in. TaxFile at $89 plus $19 per state reads the 1099s and receipts, checks them against each other and runs the deduction sweep.
4. You want a credentialed human to review and sign it. Keeper at $199 covers up to two states, $399 above that.
5. Document-heavy year with brokerage activity, and you want the best import support. TurboTax Premium at $139 plus state.

Whichever you pick, the return is only half the job for a self-employed filer. Nothing is withheld from 1099 income, so the following year needs quarterly estimated payments or the underpayment penalty starts accruing per quarter. And if you are choosing software mainly because a preparer quoted you a number that felt high, what a CPA charges to do taxes puts the fee study figures next to the software prices so you can see the real gap.

Prices on this page were verified on each vendor's own site during the 2026 season and change every year, often mid-season. Check the vendor before you buy. This is general information, not tax advice.