Reusable W-9 Onboarding for Contractors
Anthony Mironov, CEO of Wingspan, on building financial services for contractors
This is the kernel of Wingspan’s network effect, it turns tax paperwork from a one client by one client chore into a reusable identity layer for independent workers. Once a contractor has filled out onboarding once, the same tax profile, payment setup, and often adjacent checks like signatures or background checks can be reused when another client on the network pays them. That cuts busywork for both sides and makes Wingspan more valuable with each additional client and contractor on it.
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For the company, the gain is concrete. Operations, finance, and HR teams do not need to chase a fresh W-9 and other onboarding steps every time they hire someone who is already on the platform. In contractor payroll, that reuse is one of the main reasons companies want workers on a shared network.
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For the contractor, the gain is also concrete. A freelancer working with four to sixteen clients per year can avoid repeating the same setup over and over, while keeping invoicing, tax withholding, bookkeeping, and payouts in one place. That makes Wingspan closer to a persistent work identity than a one time payment tool.
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This is where Wingspan differs from broader payroll players like Deel and Plane. Deel is built around global hiring and compliance, and Plane around unified payroll for domestic and international teams. Wingspan is optimized for U.S. heavy businesses paying hundreds or thousands of contractors repeatedly, where onboarding reuse and workflow automation matter as much as the payment itself.
The next step is for reusable onboarding to compound into a full contractor graph. As more payers and contractors meet inside the same system, Wingspan can move from storing forms to owning the default wallet, payout flow, benefits, and financial services layer for independent work. That is how a compliance feature turns into durable distribution.