Workday (WDAY) RSU sell-vs-hold
Calculator · free · no signup · WDAYSell at vest or hold? Compare after-tax payout from selling Workday RSUs at vest vs. holding through the LTCG cliff at 12 months.
Beta · invite-only · AlphaLatitude Inc. · Free Tools
Your vest
Tax inputs
Hold strategy
Best after-tax payout — at year 1 yr
$47,709
Sell + invest wins by $4,981 over Hold 1 yr.
Estimates only. Not financial advice.
Heads-up: under-withholding. Your employer withholds federal tax at the IRS supplemental rate (22.0% on this vest, ≈ $17,600). Your marginal federal rate on this vest is 32.7%, owing $26,171. Expect to settle the $8,571 gap at tax time.
The hidden purchase
Tax was paid at vest either way. Holding is mathematically equivalent to taking $44,509 in after-tax cash and buying $44,509 of WDAY today.
Most diversification frameworks would advise against a purchase that size in a single name; the right answer depends on your conviction in WDAY. Holding past one year converts the gain to LTCG.
Sell + invest
Best payout| Vest value (shares × price) | $80,000 |
| Federal | |
| State | |
| Medicare | −$1,160 |
| Additional Medicare | −$720 |
| Market gain over 1 yr at 10.0% | $4,451 |
| Cap-gain tax on diversified gain — LTCG (federal + state + NIIT) | −$1,251 |
| Net at year 1 yr | $47,709 |
Sell every share at vest; invest the after-tax cash at the market return for 1 yr, then liquidate. Diversified — no single-stock concentration risk.
Hold 1 yr
| Vest value (shares × price) | $80,000 |
| Vest tax (federal + state + FICA) | |
| Net at year 1 yr | $42,728 |
Sold 444 shares to cover vest tax (net-settled); kept 556 shares 1 yr to qualify for long-term capital gains.
Social Security + Medicare are payroll taxes (collectively called FICA) — they apply because you're still employed at vest.
Both columns are stated in year-1 yr dollars. The sell side compounds at the market return; the hold side compounds at your single-stock expected return after a 20% volatility drag.
Estimates only. Assumes net-settled (sell-to-cover) vesting; double-trigger and pre-IPO RSUs are out of scope. Excludes multi-state moves, AMT interactions on other equity, and 83(b) elections. Not financial advice.
You evaluated one RSU vest. The beta plans every vest of every grant across years, with concentration and AMT in the loop.
Request beta access →About Workday
Workday (WDAY) is a public Cloud/SaaS company, incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Pleasanton, CA. IPO'd Oct 12, 2012.
Last close: $126.77 per share (as of 2026-06-16).
Equity grants at Workday typically include restricted stock units (RSUs).
Workday, Inc., is an American on‑demand (cloud-based) financial management, human capital management, and student information system software vendor. Workday was founded by David Duffield, founder and former CEO of ERP company PeopleSoft, along with former PeopleSoft chief strategist Aneel Bhusri, following Oracle's acquisition of PeopleSoft in 2005.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
When Oracle completed its $10.3 billion acquisition of PeopleSoft in January 2005, PeopleSoft's founder Dave Duffield and chief strategist Aneel Bhusri co-founded Workday two months later in Pleasanton, California. Workday rebuilt enterprise HR and financial management software as a native multi-tenant cloud application rather than porting on-premise architectures, betting on browser delivery when enterprise software was still largely installed on servers. The company IPO'd on Nasdaq as WDAY in October 2012 at an $8.5 billion market cap and reported $8.45 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2025, up 16% year-over-year, serving over 10,000 enterprise customers.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · fortune.com
Equity comp at Workday
- RSUs use single-trigger vesting: shares become yours as each portion vests on schedule, and the value is taxed as ordinary income at that point. No IPO or acquisition is required.
Researched 2026-05-07.
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Workday.
Workday (WDAY) RSUs vest as ordinary income at the price on vest day. The decision is whether to sell at vest and reinvest, or hold the shares through the 12-month LTCG cliff. This calculator runs both paths through the same after-tax math so you can compare like-for-like.
Example: 500 Workday (WDAY) RSUs vesting at $126.77 per share is $63,385 of ordinary income on vest day. After roughly 32% combined federal + state + FICA (~$20,283), the post-tax share value is ~$43,102. Holding 12 months for long-term capital-gains treatment then only matters for the price change between vest and sale; the ordinary income at vest is already locked in. The calculator runs both paths through the same after-tax math.
All Workday tools → · Use the generic RSU Sell-vs-Hold Calculator for any company.
Workday equity questions
- Should I sell or hold my Workday RSUs at vest?
- Workday restricted stock units (RSUs) are taxed as ordinary income on their value at vest whether or not you sell. The only open decision is what to do with the shares afterward: sell at vest and reinvest, or hold past twelve months for long-term capital-gains treatment on any further gain. The calculator above runs both paths through the same after-tax math so you can compare them directly.
- Does Workday grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at Workday typically takes the form of restricted stock units (RSUs). Restricted stock units are taxed as ordinary income when they vest.
- Do Workday RSUs use double-trigger vesting?
- No. Workday restricted stock units (RSUs) use single-trigger vesting: each tranche becomes yours as it vests on schedule, taxed as ordinary income at that point, with no liquidity event required.
One piece of the puzzle.
OptionsAhoy plans your Workday equity alongside hedging, vesting, and de-concentration, across bullish, neutral, and bearish market scenarios. Free during beta.