Plan your dbt Labs NSO exercise
Calculator · free · no signup · pre-IPOdbt Labs is pre-IPO. Plan your NSO exercise tax (federal, state, FICA) at any expected valuation.
Beta · invite-only · AlphaLatitude Inc. · Free Tools
Your grant
Seeded from secondary-market data, as of Jun 6, 2026
Tax inputs
Hold strategy
Best after-tax payout — at year 1
$98,765
Hold 1 yr wins by $58,891 over Sell + invest.
Estimates only. Not financial advice.
Sell + invest
| Bargain element (sale − strike) | $66,300 |
| Federal | |
| State | |
| Medicare | −$961 |
| Additional Medicare | −$597 |
| Market gain over 1 yr at 10.0% | $3,720 |
| LTCG on diversified gain (fed + state + NIIT) | −$1,045 |
| Net at year 1 | $39,874 |
Sell every share immediately; invest the after-tax cash at the market return for 1 yr, then liquidate. Diversified — no single-stock concentration risk.
Exercise + hold 1 yr
Best payout| Sale proceeds (year 1) | |
| LTCG tax (federal + state + NIIT) | −$24,061 |
| Net at year 1 | $98,765 |
Sold 3,401 shares at exercise to cover strike + tax; 1,599 shares held 1 yr for LTCG.
Social Security + Medicare are payroll taxes (collectively called FICA) — they apply because you're exercising as a current employee.
Both columns are stated in year-1 dollars: sell-now proceeds compound at the market return and pay LTCG on the gain at year 1; any cash paid out of pocket on the hold side carries the same opportunity cost.
Net at year N — by hold period
Estimates only. Excludes AMT (NSOs do not trigger AMT), state-AMT, multi-state moves, and disqualifying-disposition edge cases. Not financial advice.
You calculated one NSO decision. The beta plans NSOs alongside RSUs and ISOs in a single multi-year tax plan.
Request beta access →About dbt Labs
dbt Labs is a privately held Data company, incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Philadelphia, PA.
Last reported secondary-market price: $23.26 per share (as of 2026-06-06). Your own 409A may differ.
Data transformation.
Equity grants at dbt Labs typically include incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs).
Tristan Handy, Drew Banin, and Connor McArthur founded dbt Labs in 2016, initially as a data consultancy. They open-sourced dbt (data build tool), software that lets data analysts write SQL-based transformation logic, version it like application code, and run it against a cloud data warehouse. The tool became the de facto standard for analytics engineering. dbt Labs raised $222 million at a $4.2 billion valuation in 2023 and reached $100 million in ARR by 2024. In October 2025 dbt Labs and Fivetran announced an all-stock merger, forming a combined data infrastructure business approaching $600 million in annual revenue.
Sources: getdbt.com
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by dbt Labs.
dbt Labs NSO exercise creates ordinary income on the bargain element (federal, state, and FICA) at the price on the day you exercise. The calculator works at any valuation, so you can model your exercise cost at the current 409A FMV, an expected IPO price, or post-IPO scenarios.
Example: at dbt Labs's last reported price of $23.26, exercising 5,000 NSOs with a $6.98 strike creates a $81,400 bargain element, taxed as ordinary income on the day you exercise. Combined federal + state + FICA on that bargain typically lands between $21,978 and $36,630 depending on your bracket and state. The calculator above computes the exact figure for your situation and compares selling now vs. holding through the long-term capital-gains threshold.
All dbt Labs tools → · Use the generic NSO Exercise Calculator for any company.
dbt Labs equity questions
- How is a dbt Labs NSO exercise taxed?
- Exercising a non-qualified stock option (NSO) creates ordinary income on the bargain element (the price on the day you exercise minus your strike), subject to federal income tax, state income tax, and FICA. The calculator above computes that tax for your dbt Labs grant and compares selling the shares now against holding past the one-year mark for long-term capital-gains treatment.
- Does dbt Labs grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at dbt Labs typically takes the form of incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs). Incentive stock options can trigger the alternative minimum tax (AMT) when you exercise.
- Are dbt Labs shares eligible for QSBS?
- They might be. Qualified small business stock (QSBS) under Internal Revenue Code Section 1202 can exclude federal tax on much of the gain when shares were acquired at original issuance from a C-corporation while its gross assets were under $50 million, and held at least five years. Whether your dbt Labs shares qualify turns on when you acquired them and the company's asset size at that time.
One piece of the puzzle.
OptionsAhoy plans your dbt Labs equity alongside hedging, vesting, and de-concentration, across bullish, neutral, and bearish market scenarios. Free during beta.