Not So Solo: How Solopreneurs Build Contractor Networks and Power a $72 Billion Hidden Economy

Solopreneurs make up more than 80% of all U.S. small businesses, yet they are often treated as marginal players in the economy. Gusto research last fall challenged the idea that solopreneurship is merely a stopgap or side hustle. Instead, we found that for many people, solopreneurship represents a durable and viable career path.

This report challenges another common assumption: that solopreneurs are truly working alone and that their economic impact ends with their own earnings. In reality, many solopreneurs rely on networks of contractors to deliver their work and coordinate business operations. Rather than viewing solopreneurs as isolated one-person businesses, in this report we examine them as hubs in a broader system of subcontracted labor that expands their economic footprint.

Using data from January 2025 through December 2025, we tracked contractor payment relationships across the solopreneur population to answer two questions: (1) how many solopreneurs rely on contractors, and (2) how much economic activity flows through those relationships?

What we find suggests that many solopreneurs operate more like traditional businesses than is often recognized. They coordinate contractors, distribute work across independent workers, and generate economic activity that extends beyond their own labor and earnings.

The report is organized as follows. First, we establish how widespread contractor use is among solopreneurs and how many contractors they typically coordinate. Next, we estimate the total size of the contractor economy that solopreneurs generate nationally through contracting. We then examine what  type of work solopreneurs typically outsource — both overall and by industry — to show how contractor networks serve different functions in different sectors. Finally, we look at where contractor use is concentrated geographically, revealing how large, dynamic metros serve as hubs for networked solopreneurship.

Key Findings

• Solopreneurs fuel a hidden $72 billion economy. Beyond their own earnings, solopreneurs generate an estimated $72 billion per year in payments to contractors — the equivalent of roughly the wage of 1.1 million full-time salaries. 

• More than 4 in 10 solopreneurs (43.5%) pay at least one contractor, and most of those work with multiple, highlighting that even many “solo” businesses are not truly solo. Additionally  many used more than one contractor in 2025, 61% engaged two or more in 2025, including nearly a third who work with five or more contractors.

• Solopreneurs outsource strategically — but what they outsource depends on their industry. Creative work is the most commonly contracted category overall (27.2%), followed by business and financial roles (14%) and sales (10.2%). But the mix shifts dramatically by industry: in real estate, 64% of contractors are sales agents; in health care, 46% are clinicians; in information and media, 73% are creative workers. 

• The biggest metros are contractor economy hubs. Contractor use is highest in large, economically dynamic cities like Miami (57.8%), New York (53.6%), Chicago (52.8%), and Los Angeles (51.0%) — where deep labor markets and high rates of new business formation make contractor networks a form of entrepreneurial infrastructure.

Who are solopreneurs

Solopreneurs make up the backbone of the American small business economy. Of the nearly 35 million small businesses in the United States, more than 80% are nonemployer businesses—companies run by a single owner without W-2 employees. Most solopreneurs are not gig workers or hobbyists. They are running real businesses that serve customers, generate revenue, and contribute to their local economies.

Solopreneurs operate across nearly every sector of the economy. Many are concentrated in professional services, real estate, and administrative support, where consulting and contract-based work are common. Others run businesses in construction, transportation, and other hands-on industries, often responding directly to local demand.

More than 4 in 10 Solopreneurs Rely on Contractors — and Most Work with More than One

By definition, solopreneurs do not have formal employees. But that does not mean they operate entirely alone. Many rely on contractors to help deliver work, expand capacity, or bring in specialized skills when needed. These relationships allow solopreneurs to remain flexible—scaling up when opportunities arise without the long-term commitments associated with hiring employees.

More than four in ten solopreneurs (43.5%) paid at least one contractor during 2025. In other words, a substantial share of “solo” businesses are not operating entirely alone—they’re coordinating outside labor to get work done. 

Additionally, Solopreneurs who rely on contractors rarely stop at just one. While 39% work with a single contractor, a majority (61%) work with two or more. Many coordinate much larger networks: 15% engage five to nine contractors, and 13% work with ten or more in a year.

These are not one-off arrangements. Across industries, the median solopreneur-contractor relationship lasts five months, and about one in three lasts at least a year. Solopreneurs are building durable working relationships, bringing in different contractors as needed to deliver work, expand capacity, or access specialized skills, and often returning to the same people over time.

The result is that many solopreneurs operate less like lone freelancers and more like project managers assembling flexible teams. They extend their reach well beyond what a single-person business could accomplish alone, and in doing so, they generate opportunities for other independent workers, quietly expanding the economic footprint of the solopreneur economy.

The Size of the Contractor-Solopreneur Economy: How Much Revenue Flows to Contractors?

Even without employees, many solopreneurs are directing a meaningful share of their revenue back into the small business ecosystem in the form of contractor payments. Among those who use contractors, the typical solopreneur spends about 10% of their revenue on contractor payments. However the range is wide. Some solopreneurs spend relatively little on contractors, while about a quarter direct more than 25% of their revenue to contractors. In these cases, solopreneurs are not just earning income for themselves, they are supporting, and creating work for other independent workers and small businesses. These payments act as an economic multiplier for the solopreneur economy, expanding the amount of work generated beyond what a single-person business could produce alone.

Solopreneurs Generate a nearly $72 Billion Contractor Economy

These contractor payments do more than support individual projects, they scale across the broader solopreneur economy. When extended to the roughly 30 million nonemployer businesses in the United States (Census, 2023), we estimate that solopreneurs generate about $72.3 billion in annual payments to contractors - with a plausible range from $66 billion to as much as $81 billion annually.

This estimate builds on the contractor spending patterns observed in Gusto’s data. We scale the contractor spending patterns observed in Gusto data to the broader population of nonemployer businesses using the published data from the census non employer business statistics, producing the plausible estimate of the contractor economy surrounding solopreneurs.

To put $72.3 billion in perspective: at the 2025 median U.S. annual wage of roughly $62,000, that is equivalent to approximately 1.1 million full-time salaries. In other words, solopreneurs are channeling enough spending to contractors to support a workforce nearly the size of the population of Dallas — yet much of it does not appear in traditional employment statistics. Many of these payments bypass payroll systems, and therefore go uncounted in most measures of job creation.

What Do Solopreneurs Outsource?

Solopreneurs rely on contractors for a wide range of tasks—but a few categories stand out.

The most commonly outsourced work falls in arts, design, entertainment, and media (27.2%), including graphic design, content creation, and marketing. These functions are highly modular and project-based, making them easy to outsource and recombine. Rather than building these capabilities in-house, solopreneurs can assemble them on demand.

Business and financial roles (14%) are also commonly outsourced, including bookkeeping, accounting, and financial management. These are ongoing but specialized tasks, and many solopreneurs rely on contractors to manage them—freeing up time to focus on their core work.

Operational support is another major category. Roles in office and administrative support (8%) and management (4.8%) suggest that solopreneurs often use contractors to handle day-to-day tasks that keep the business running.

Taken together, solopreneurs use contractors in three primary ways: to access specialized expertise, to support core business functions, and to handle operational tasks. Rather than doing everything themselves, many distribute work across networks of contractors, operating more like small, flexible firms than traditional one-person businesses.

But What Solopreneurs Outsource Depends on Their Industry

These patterns look very different depending on the type of business.

In some industries, contractors are doing the core work itself. In real estate, nearly two-thirds (64%) of contractors are sales agents, reflecting a model where solopreneurs scale by coordinating networks of independent agents. In health care, 46% of contractors are clinicians, allowing solo practices to expand capacity without hiring employees.

In other industries, solopreneurs remain the primary producer but use contractors to extend their capabilities. In information and media, nearly three-quarters (73%) of contractors are creative workers, supporting content production and marketing. In professional services, contractors are concentrated in creative (37%) and business and financial roles (27%), handling branding and back-office work. In education, contractor work is spread across teaching, creative, and administrative roles.

Taken together, these patterns show that solopreneurs are not a monolithic group. Some operate by coordinating distributed workforces, while others remain individual producers who bring in specialized skills as needed.

Contractor use is most prevalent in the nation’s largest, most economically dynamic metros — the same places driving a large share of new business formation in the U.S.

Miami leads the country, where 57.8% of solopreneurs hire contractors, followed by New York (53.6%), Chicago (52.8%), and Los Angeles (51.0%). These metros are not just large — they are also among the most entrepreneurial. In recent years, Sun Belt hubs like Miami, Atlanta, Houston, and Las Vegas have ranked among the fastest-growing regions for new business formation, while New York and Los Angeles continue to generate some of the highest total volumes of new businesses nationally.

This overlap is not coincidental. Large, diverse labor markets make it easier to access specialized skills on demand — lowering the barriers to starting a business. Instead of hiring employees upfront, new business owners can rely on contractors to get off the ground.

In this sense, contractor networks function as entrepreneurial infrastructure. They allow solopreneurs to launch with lower fixed costs and scale more quickly as demand grows. In the early stages of business growth, this flexibility becomes a key competitive advantage, enabling businesses to respond rapidly to changing market conditions.

The model is also inherently networked. Many solopreneurs both hire contractors and work as contractors for other businesses. The result is an interconnected ecosystem where business formation does not just create individual firms — it expands a web of economic relationships between them.

Conclusion

More than 4 in 10 solopreneurs hire contractors, most of those coordinate multiple, and together they generate an estimated $72 billion in annual contractor payments. What they outsource varies widely: in some industries, contractors do the core work itself; in others, they extend the solopreneur's capabilities in creative, financial, and operational roles. These relationships are durable — the median lasts five months, with one in three lasting a year or longer — and they cluster in the country's largest, most entrepreneurial metros, where contractor networks lower the cost of starting a business and make it easier to scale.

And because many solopreneurs both hire contractors and work as contractors for others, the result is not a collection of isolated firms but an interconnected ecosystem — one where each new business formed creates economic relationships that ripple outward.

Having no employees has never meant working alone. For millions of solopreneurs, contractor networks are how the business operates — and each new business formed expands an interconnected economy that traditional statistics were never designed to measure

Methodology

Methodology: National Estimate

To estimate the total size of the contractor economy connected to solopreneurs, we combine two data sources: the Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics (2023) and contractor payment and revenue data from Gusto's platform.

Revenue distribution. The Census reports approximately 30.4 million nonemployer firms nationally, distributed across 11 revenue bins ranging from under $5,000 to over $5 million. We use the midpoint of each bin as an estimate of average firm revenue within that tier, scaled proportionally so that the firm-weighted total matches the known aggregate revenue of $1.75 trillion.

Contractor usage rate. We estimate that 43.5% of solopreneurs use contractors, combining on-platform contractor payments observed directly in Gusto data with off-platform payments detected through linked bank transaction data.

Contractor-to-revenue ratios. Using a sample of solopreneurs on Gusto we compute the contractor-to-revenue ratio within each Census revenue bin. 

National estimate. For each revenue bin, we multiply the number of Census firms by the usage rate and the bin-specific median contractor-to-revenue ratio, then sum across all bins:

• Total = sum across bins of (43.5% usage rate x firms in bin x midpoint revenue x bin specific contractor to revenue ratio)