<prompt> Human: Just curious.  <response>: 401k admin here. This is colloquially known as a Solok. In this situation, it doesnt really make sense to have a matching formula because you are the company and the company is you. You can choose to defer through the 401k arrangement up to that limit, and you can max out the rest of the limit through an employer contribution on your behalf.There are several things that come into play.The first is the 415 limit. This is the limit that the IRS puts on annual additions on behalf of a participant in a qualified retirement plan. The 2015 415 limit, as someone below pointed out, is the lesser of an individuals gross compensation or 53,000. The 415 limit is inclusive of all employee contributions pre-tax, Roth, or after-tax and employer contributions profit sharing, match, etc. It is not inclusive of the 6,000 catch-up contribution that a plan participant is eligible to make if theyre 50 or above.The second is the 402g limit. This is the 18,000 limit that people are generally familiar with. It is the maximum statutory amount an employee can contribute to the plan in pre-tax and Roth money.The last and not least especially for single participant 401k plans is the limit on deductible contributions. If youre starting a qualified plan as an individual, you generally want to save on taxes right? Well the IRS says that an employer can only contribute up to 25 of the gross compensation paid to its employees. If youre self-employed, this translates to 25 of your income net of self-employment taxes and business deductions and other stuff that I dont want to get into because its a pain in the ass: refer to IRS Publication 560. Oversimplifying a lot, if this net is 100,000 you can only contribute 25,000 as an employer contribution. Now if you are making a lot of money youd like to defer taxation on and want to get really fancy, you can also start your own defined benefit retirement plan on top of your own 401k. This would allow you to potentially put away even more money for retirement, at the cost of a lot more administrative overhead. 