Collective

self-employed back-office and tax platform

Collective

Industry Benefits

A private platform providing company formation, accounting, bookkeeping, tax, payroll, and compliance services for self-employed people and solo business owners. Collective can reduce administrative burden for freelancers, but it sells a recurring professional-services layer rather than changing ownership or benefits power.

Why this matters: Collective is adjacent to Opolis because freelancers often need legal, tax, payroll, and back-office infrastructure before benefits are even usable.

Letter grade D Extractive Medium confidence (AI) Rubric gcd-rubric-v1

Final Score 22* D - Extractive
DEXTRACTIVE22 tentative score pts

* Tentative scaffolding score. Not human-checked or final.

Base Material24
Bonus+0
Cap35Ownership <= 2 and Governance <= 2
After Cap24
Penalties-2
!Not Verified
Represent this organization?

Request verification to have the evidence record checked against primary materials and organization-supplied documents. Verification does not buy a higher score; scores change only when review finds factual errors, omissions, or miscalibration.

Request verification

Evaluation Overview

D - Extractive

The score turns mainly on Extraction, with the largest penalty coming from Subscription Capture.

Strengths

  • Extraction3/10
  • Solidarity with the Unemployed3/7
  • Loss-Bearing Fidelity3/7

Penalties

  • Subscription Capture-1
  • Surveillance Capture-1

Evidence state

  • ConfidenceMedium confidence (AI)
  • ThoroughnessDeveloped (AI)
  • Linked claims6
  • Direct axis claims6
  • Coverage6/11

Scoring Axes
Axis Score Why this score
Ownership
?
Control rights: shareholder-dominated at 0, worker cooperative control at 10.
2 / 10

Collective earns its Ownership value from who ultimately controls the institution.

Linked evidence
  • Collective presents as a privately controlled or nonprofit organization rather than a worker-owned, customer-owned, or member-governed cooperative. [1]
Governance
?
Binding decision authority: centralized control at 0, democratic stakeholder control at 10.
2 / 10

Collective's Governance value reflects whether independent workers can meaningfully change rules, fees, benefits access, or platform policy.

Linked evidence
  • Collective does not publish evidence of binding democratic control by the freelancers, contractors, or policyholders who use the service. [2]
Extraction
?
Surplus allocation, wage share, CEO pay ratio, margins, and structured extraction judgment.
3 / 10

Collective's Extraction value turns on whether the service pools bargaining power for workers or simply charges a toll on a difficult benefits market.

Linked evidence
  • context Collective sells its services through recurring membership plans, making cancellation, fit, and service dependency relevant to the evaluation. [3]
Labor Sovereignty
?
Worker power: coercive conditions at 0, co-determination or ownership at 7. Employee dissatisfaction matters only when source-backed evidence shows concrete limits on worker agency, such as coercive scheduling, retaliation, wage theft, harassment, unsafe conditions, suppression of worker voice, or extreme turnover.
2 / 7

Collective's Labor Sovereignty value measures whether the model expands independent workers' control over income, benefits, tax status, and client relationships.

Linked evidence
  • context Collective specifically markets to freelancers, consultants, creators, and solo business owners. [4]
Solidarity with the Unemployed
?
Treatment of exits and nonworkers, including severance, redeployment, and non-competes.
3 / 7

Collective's Solidarity value is tied to service for people outside standard employment.

Linked evidence
  • Collective specifically markets to freelancers, consultants, creators, and solo business owners. [4]
Loss-Bearing Fidelity
?
Willingness to absorb costs to preserve values, workers, users, and public obligations.
3 / 7

Collective's Loss-Bearing Fidelity value reflects whether the institution absorbs complexity and risk for workers or pushes it back onto individuals through fine print, brokerage dependence, or policy exclusions.

Linked evidence
  • context Collective sells its services through recurring membership plans, making cancellation, fit, and service dependency relevant to the evaluation. [3]
Market Conduct
?
Pricing fairness, switching costs, lock-in, and rent extraction.
3 / 5

Collective's Market Conduct value reflects pricing restraint, cancellation friction, switching costs, and bargaining asymmetry.

Linked evidence
  • context Collective offers formation, tax, accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, and compliance services for self-employed people. [5]
Product Integrity
?
Preservation of quality rather than degradation for monetization.
3 / 5

Collective's Product Integrity value is strongest where the core service solves a real benefits, insurance, payroll, or compliance problem for independent workers without degrading into lead generation or lock-in.

Linked evidence
  • Collective offers formation, tax, accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, and compliance services for self-employed people. [5]
Scale Integrity
?
Whether growth improves or degrades fairness and accountability.
3 / 5

Collective's Scale Integrity value asks whether growth makes portable benefits more accountable and accessible or mainly expands a data-heavy intermediary layer between workers, insurers, clients, and platforms.

Linked evidence
  • context Collective offers formation, tax, accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, and compliance services for self-employed people. [5]

Penalties
Penalty Applied Why this penalty
Subscription Capture
?
Manipulative recurring-payment, automatic-renewal, cancellation-friction, bundling, trial-conversion, or refund designs that profit from inertia or confusion. Range: -5 to 0.
-1

Collective takes a Subscription Capture penalty because the service is sold as a recurring membership around high-friction tax and business administration.

Linked evidence
  • Collective sells its services through recurring membership plans, making cancellation, fit, and service dependency relevant to the evaluation. [3]
Surveillance Capture
?
Invasive surveillance, unreasonably non-optional tracking, facial recognition, biometric identification, or AI behavior scanning of customers, workers, bystanders, or the public. Range: -5 to 0.
-1

Collective takes a Surveillance Capture penalty because the service necessarily handles sensitive worker, health, tax, insurance, payment, identity, or contractor-management data.

Linked evidence
  • Collective processes sensitive personal, business, financial, tax, and payroll information for self-employed customers. [6]

Bonus Credits

No bonus credits applied in this version.

Confidence Basis

Confidence Basis

Confidence is computed from the evidence trail and review state, not typed into the profile by hand.

Medium 68/100

6 verified linked claims 6 direct axis claims 0 disputed claims 6/11 components covered

This confidence label measures the source-backed evidence trail. AI-scaffolded scores remain tentative until human review.

Claim confidence 14/20

6 verified linked claims

Source quality 11/18

Best source per verified claim, weighted by institutional reliability

Direct axis-specific claims 9/18

6 direct claims across 11 active components

Dispute load 12/12

0 disputed claims on this entity

Recency 10/10

Newest accepted timestamp: May 13, 2026

Reviewer status 7/12

Human-reviewed components score higher than AI scaffolding

Component coverage 5/10

6/11 evidence-bearing components have direct support

Evidence State

Evidence State

Profile stateAI draft / human-pending
VerificationUnverified
ConfidenceMedium confidence (AI)
ThoroughnessDeveloped (AI)
Correction routeUse “Challenge this rating” for factual errors, missing counterevidence, source problems, or calculation mistakes.
Company responseCompany representatives can submit source-backed corrections; payment never changes scores or reviewer authority.

Claims and Sources

Claims are the evidence record. Each claim needs a source link, axis category, status, confidence level, and timestamp before it can support a score.

* Tentative scaffolding score. Not human-checked or final.
1Collective presents as a privately controlled or nonprofit organization rather than a worker-owned, customer-owned, or member-governed cooperative.

Ownership Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

2Collective does not publish evidence of binding democratic control by the freelancers, contractors, or policyholders who use the service.

Governance Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

3Collective sells its services through recurring membership plans, making cancellation, fit, and service dependency relevant to the evaluation.

Subscription Capture Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

4Collective specifically markets to freelancers, consultants, creators, and solo business owners.

Solidarity Unemployed Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

5Collective offers formation, tax, accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, and compliance services for self-employed people.

Product Integrity Verified High confidence Human-reviewed

6Collective processes sensitive personal, business, financial, tax, and payroll information for self-employed customers.

Surveillance Capture Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

Alternatives

AGOOD55 tentative score Opolis freelancer employment cooperative and benefits platform · same market AGOOD52 tentative score Benefits.gov federal benefit-finder and assistance-program portal · same market AGOOD52 tentative score DisasterAssistance.gov federal disaster assistance application and status portal · same market AGOOD51 tentative score Freelancers Union nonprofit freelancer advocacy and benefits organization · same market

Competitors

AGOOD55 tentative score Opolis freelancer employment cooperative and benefits platform · same market AGOOD52 tentative score Benefits.gov federal benefit-finder and assistance-program portal · same market AGOOD52 tentative score DisasterAssistance.gov federal disaster assistance application and status portal · same market AGOOD51 tentative score Freelancers Union nonprofit freelancer advocacy and benefits organization · same market CPERFORMATIVE35 tentative score SafetyWing remote-worker travel and health insurance platform · same market DEXTRACTIVE27 tentative score Stride Health independent-worker health and benefits marketplace · same market DEXTRACTIVE27 tentative score Thimble small-business and freelancer insurance marketplace · same market DEXTRACTIVE25 tentative score HealthSherpa ACA enrollment and health-insurance marketplace · same market

Help Improve This Profile

Submit source-backed evidence or challenge a specific claim, source, axis value, or calculation below.

How This Page Is Maintained

Evidence comes in through contributors, is checked by verifiers, and is synthesized by reviewers. Founder authority remains narrow and visible; scores recalculate when verified claims or the rubric change.

Civic Note

Incorporation, limited liability, market access, and other institutional privileges are public grants. Good Companies Directory treats those privileges as conditional on accountability to workers, users, communities, and the public.

Submit evidence for Collective Add one source-backed fact for review.

Challenge this rating Point to a specific score, claim, source, or calculation problem.

Audit Log

Recent public changes for this company or group. The full audit log is part of the Transparency record.

No company-specific audit entries have been published yet.

View Full Audit Log