Leaving Gusto? Plan your 90-day ISO window
Calculator · free · no signup · pre-IPOGusto is pre-IPO. Left with vested ISOs? Model the 90-day exercise-or-forfeit decision and its AMT cost at any valuation: current 409A or an expected exit price.
Beta · invite-only · AlphaLatitude Inc. · Free Tools
Your grant
Seeded from secondary-market data, as of Jun 9, 2026
Tax inputs
Grant timeline
Recommended exercise quantity
Exercise all 10,000
With 10%/yr expected growth over the 3-yr hold, every share's expected after-tax gain exceeds its marginal AMT cost. Net value: $98,018 at horizon.
Net after-tax value vs. shares exercised
Each point is the expected after-tax NPV at your hold horizon if you exercise that many shares now and let the rest expire.
Year-by-year tax breakdown
You pay the higher of Regular tax and Tentative AMT per jurisdiction, then subtract Credit recovered. The result is Net tax. Hover any number for the bracket-by-bracket breakdown.
| 1 | 10,000 | |||
| 2 | 0 | |||
| 3 | 0 |
Federal AMT credit
Earned
$30,662
Recovered
$29,764
Remaining
$898
The AMT credit only recovers in years where regular tax exceeds AMT — typically a year with no ISO exercise. It carries forward indefinitely (Form 8801) and applies in any future tax year where regular tax exceeds AMT.
Estimates only. Excludes disqualifying dispositions, NSOs, multi-state moves, and AMT preferences other than ISO bargain elements. Long-term capital gains tax assumes a qualifying disposition (ISO held ≥1 yr from exercise and ≥2 yr from grant); state LTCG follows ordinary brackets except where the state grants preferential treatment (HI, ND, SC, WI, AR, NM) or has a dedicated LTCG-only tax (WA). Assumes you are within the $100K ISO limit (any portion of an annual ISO grant whose FMV at grant exceeds $100K is treated as NSO from the start, §422(d)). State AMT figures are 2025 (next-year values published in late 2026). Not financial advice.
QSBS note. If your shares qualify (typically pre-IPO C-corp grants held 5+ years), a federal rule lets you exclude up to $10M of gain on a future sale from federal tax. That single rule shifts exercise-timing math more than AMT does. (This is §1202 “qualified small-business stock”.) Modeled in beta, not here.
You solved the exercise window. The beta plans what comes after it: the new shares, your remaining equity, hedges, and taxes in one multi-year plan.
Request beta access →About Gusto
Gusto is a privately held Cloud/SaaS company, incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
Last reported secondary-market price: $21.87 per share (as of 2026-06-09). Your own 409A may differ.
SMB payroll/HR.
Equity grants at Gusto typically include incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs).
Gusto, Inc. is a company that develops payroll, benefits, and human resource management software for businesses based in the United States.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Joshua Reeves, Tomer London, and Edward Kim launched Gusto, originally ZenPayroll, in December 2012 to automate payroll, benefits, and HR administration for small businesses. The platform handles federal, state, and local tax filings automatically and has expanded to cover health insurance brokerage, workers' compensation, and time tracking. Gusto serves more than 400,000 businesses and generated $975 million in revenue in 2025, up 30% year over year. A June 2025 tender offer set its valuation at $9.3 billion. The company acquired retirement plan provider Guideline for roughly $600 million in November 2025.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · sacra.com
Equity comp at Gusto
- Gusto has run at least three employee tender offers (company-organized windows where employees can sell some vested shares to outside buyers) since founding. The most recent confirmed offer closed in June 2025, raising over $200 million at a $9.3 billion valuation led by Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. It was open to current and former employees with at least two years of tenure. An earlier offer occurred in 2021 alongside the Series E round at roughly $9.5 billion valuation. Fortune reporting described the 2025 event as the third such offer, suggesting a third earlier liquidity event not well documented publicly.
- Recent share-sale events (industry term: tender offers):
- Jun 2025: $9.3B implied valuation, led by Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (Teachers Venture Growth) · fortune.com
Sources: fortune.com · finance.yahoo.com
Researched 2026-05-10.
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Gusto.
If you are leaving Gusto with vested incentive stock options (ISOs), most stock plans give you 90 days from departure to exercise or forfeit them. The calculator works at any valuation: enter your strike and the current 409A fair market value (FMV) or an expected exit price. It computes your window deadline, the alternative minimum tax (AMT) cost of exercising in full, and the partial-exercise share count that maximizes expected after-tax value.
Example: leaving Gusto with 5,000 vested ISOs at a $6.56 strike, with the last reported price at $21.87, exercising all of them inside the 90-day window puts a $76,550 bargain element into one tax year. Above the 2026 federal AMT exemption ($88,100 single, $137,000 married joint), the 28% AMT rate adds roughly $21,434 on top of regular tax before any state AMT (CA, CO, CT, MN). Exercising fewer shares lowers that bill at the cost of forfeiting the rest; the calculator above finds the count that maximizes expected after-tax value for your exact figures.
All Gusto tools → · Use the generic Post-Termination ISO Exercise Calculator for any company.
Gusto equity questions
- I left Gusto. How long do I have to exercise my ISOs?
- Most stock plans give you 90 days from your departure date to exercise vested incentive stock options (ISOs); unexercised options are forfeited when the window closes. Tax law is slightly wider: ISO treatment requires you to have been an employee within 3 months of exercise (Internal Revenue Code Section 422(a)(2)), so options exercised under an employer-extended window are taxed as non-qualified stock options (NSOs). Check your grant agreement for Gusto's exact terms. The calculator above computes your deadline from your departure date, the alternative minimum tax (AMT) cost of exercising, and the share count that maximizes after-tax value.
- Does Gusto grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at Gusto 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 Gusto 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 Gusto 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 Gusto equity alongside hedging, vesting, and de-concentration, across bullish, neutral, and bearish market scenarios. Free during beta.