Yelp (YELP) RSU sell-vs-hold
Calculator · free · no signup · YELPSell at vest or hold? Compare after-tax payout from selling Yelp 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 YELP today.
Most diversification frameworks would advise against a purchase that size in a single name; the right answer depends on your conviction in YELP. 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 →Related calculators: RSU Lot Order Calculator · Stock Concentration Calculator
About Yelp
Yelp (YELP) is a public Consumer Internet company, incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
Equity grants at Yelp typically include restricted stock units (RSUs).
Yelp Inc. is an American company that develops the Yelp.com website and the Yelp mobile app, which publishes crowd-sourced reviews about businesses. It also operates Yelp Guest Manager, a table reservation service. It is headquartered in San Francisco.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons, both early PayPal employees, founded the company in 2004 in San Francisco. Consumer reviews of local businesses built the audience, and advertising sold to those same businesses built the revenue, an arrangement that has drawn persistent complaints about review filtering and sales practices. Restaurants, home services, and auto services supply most advertising, and the company has pushed into services request-for-quote flows. Competition from Google local results has capped traffic growth for years.
Sources: yelp.com · en.wikipedia.org
Equity comp at Yelp
- 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 2026-08-17.
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Yelp.
Yelp (YELP) 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.
All Yelp tools → · Use the generic RSU Sell-vs-Hold Calculator for any company. Diversifying multiple RSU lots? See the lot-by-lot sell order →
Yelp equity questions
- Should I sell or hold my Yelp RSUs at vest?
- Yelp 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 Yelp grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at Yelp typically takes the form of restricted stock units (RSUs). Restricted stock units are taxed as ordinary income when they vest.
- Do Yelp RSUs use double-trigger vesting?
- No. Yelp 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.
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