HSA vs Traditional Health Plan Calculator

Choosing between an HSA-eligible High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) and a Traditional Health Plan for 2026 comes down to total out-of-pocket cost, not premiums alone. The tax advantages of an HSA and your own medical needs can tilt the answer in either direction, so the comparison here weighs premiums, deductibles, and the HSA contributions and tax savings that ride along with the high-deductible option.

Each plan's annual cost is twelve months of premiums plus your out-of-pocket spending: everything up to the deductible, then 20% coinsurance on the rest. The model does not apply an out-of-pocket maximum, so at very high spending it overstates both plans. For the HDHP it subtracts the tax saved on your HSA contribution at your federal bracket plus 7.65% for Social Security and Medicare, which is what payroll contributions through an employer's cafeteria plan avoid; money you deposit on your own saves income tax but not the 7.65%. It also finds the spending level, if any, at which the HDHP stops being the cheaper plan.

Your estimated annual medical spending is the variable that swings the result the most, so it's worth getting close. Employer HSA contributions matter too: they count toward the 2026 limits of $4,400 for self-only and $8,750 for family coverage, and since this tool has no separate field for them, subtract them from the HDHP's annual premium to compare fairly. The tax savings on HSA contributions are the other easy thing to miss, and they can make an HDHP the more affordable choice even when its deductible looks steep next to a traditional plan.