Free Job Offer Comparison — Total Comp + Cost-of-Living Adjusted

What This Calculator Does

A job offer comparison calculator answers a question every candidate eventually faces: which of these two offers is actually better?Most people answer it by comparing base salaries, which is the single most expensive mistake in offer evaluation. Base salary is rarely more than 60–70% of total compensation at modern tech, finance, and consulting employers — the rest hides inside signing bonuses, annual bonuses, equity grants, 401(k) match, and benefits, each of which behaves differently across a four-year horizon. This tool flattens all of that into a single comparable number per offer and shows you the dollar gap between them.

The second hidden lever is vesting. A $20,000 signing bonus paid up-front is worth $20,000 this year. A $100,000 equity grant vesting over four years is worth roughly $25,000 per year — not $100,000. Mixing those two numbers without annualizing them is how candidates convince themselves a startup with a flashy paper-equity pitch is “paying more” than a FAANG offer that is in fact paying substantially more in real, cash-equivalent terms. The calculator divides equity and signing by their vesting horizons before adding them to base, so every line item is on the same per-year footing.

The third lever is cost of living. A $250,000 total comp in San Francisco does not buy what a $200,000 total comp in New York buys, because SF rent, groceries, and services run roughly 30% higher than NYC. With NYC pegged at index 100 and SF around 130, the SF offer’s purchasing power is $250,000 ÷ 1.30 ≈ $192,000 in NYC-equivalent dollars — meaning the “higher” offer is actually worse in real-life terms. Pair that adjustment with the same logic from our cost-of-living calculator and the ranking between two offers can flip outright. The job offer comparison calculator does this normalization automatically so the headline number is the one that should drive the decision.

The Math: Total Comp + COL Adjustment

The engine is two formulas stacked. First, every offer is rolled up into an annualized total compensation figure. Second, that figure is divided by the cost-of-living index ratio so two offers in different cities are compared in the same purchasing-power units.

Each line item in that formula corresponds to a real piece of the offer letter, but they come in different units. Salary is per year by definition. Signing is a one-time amount that we annualize over the cliff window (typically 1 year for cash signing, 2 years if the contract claws it back on early departure). Annual bonus is per year. Equity is a total grant divided by the vesting horizon — 4 years is the FAANG standard, often with a 1-year cliff and monthly vesting thereafter, but startups frequently use 4-year vests with no cliff and pre-IPO companies sometimes stretch to 5 or 6 years for senior grants. 401(k) match is the percentage of salary your employer contributes (free money — never leave it on the table). Benefitsis a catch-all for the dollar value of healthcare, HSA match, tuition reimbursement, transit, gym, and equipment stipends. Once every line item is in the same per-year unit, the sum is the offer’s total comp; dividing by the COL index gives the purchasing-power-adjusted figure.

How to Use This Calculator

1. Enter Offer A base salary, signing bonus, expected annual bonus (dollars, not percentage of plan), total equity grant, vesting years (default 4), 401(k) match percentage, and benefits dollar value. The calculator normalizes everything to a per-year number behind the scenes.
2. Enter Offer Bwith the same fields. If one offer doesn’t have equity, signing, or a match, leave that field at zero — the formula collapses cleanly.
3. Pick the cost-of-living indexfor each offer’s city. NYC = 100 is the anchor; SF ≈ 130 means SF costs 30% more than NYC, Austin ≈ 85 means Austin costs 15% less. If both offers are in the same city, leave both indexes equal and the COL adjustment becomes a no-op.
4. Read the three outputs together: nominal total comp for each offer (the sticker number on paper), COL-adjusted total comp (the purchasing-power number — the one that should drive the decision), and the dollar gap between A and B in adjusted terms. The sign of the gap tells you which offer wins.
5. Sanity-check the equity line on pre-IPO startup offers by re-running the calculator with the equity value cut to 50% of the paper grant. That stress test is the one most candidates skip and the one that most often flips the verdict.

Three Worked Examples

Three real offer comparisons at the points on the spectrum where most candidates get the decision wrong. Plug any of them into the calculator above to see the line-by-line math.

Example 1 — Same-city compare (Offer A vs Offer B in NYC)

Offer A: $120K base + $20K signing (1-year) + $12K expected annual bonus + $100K equity over 4 years + 5% 401(k) match + $8K benefits, NYC index 100. Annualized: 120 + 20 + 12 + 25 + 6 + 8 = $176K total comp. (5% of $120K = $6K match; $100K ÷ 4 = $25K/year equity.)

Offer B: $150K base + $10K signing (1-year) + $15K expected annual bonus + $60K equity over 4 years + 4% match + $6K benefits, NYC index 100. Annualized: 150 + 10 + 15 + 15 + 6 + 6 = $194.5K total comp. (Note: 4% of $150K = $6K match — same dollar match as Offer A despite the lower percentage, because Offer B’s base is higher.)

Same city means COL index is identical, so the adjustment is a wash and the nominal numbers are also the adjusted numbers. Offer B wins by $18.5K, or roughly 10%. The candidate who only compared base salaries would have seen the $30K base gap and felt the decision was easy; the candidate who ignored bonus structure would have over-weighted Offer A’s bigger equity number ($100K vs $60K total grant) without realizing that annualized over four years, the difference shrinks to $10K and is more than wiped out by Offer B’s higher base. The full-stack number is the one that should drive the choice.

Example 2 — NYC vs SF (the COL flip)

Offer A in NYC: total comp annualized to $200K, COL index 100. Adjusted = $200K ÷ 1.00 = $200K.

Offer B in SF: total comp annualized to $250K, COL index 130. On paper Offer B is the obvious winner — $50K more, a 25% raise. But adjusted = $250K ÷ 1.30 = $192K in NYC-equivalent purchasing power.

The winner switches.Offer A in NYC actually buys more groceries, more rent, more dining, more services than Offer B in SF — by roughly $8K of NYC-equivalent purchasing power per year. The calculator flags this with a clear inversion: the nominal number says B, the adjusted number says A. This is the single most common case where the tool earns its keep — candidates who chase the $50K headline raise to SF and then wonder why their lifestyle felt tighter, not better, six months in. The calculator catches it in ten seconds. Then layer in California’s up to 13.3% state income tax against New York’s up to 10.9% (and TX/FL/WA at 0% if either offer were in one of those states), and the gap widens further on a net-of-tax basis. Run both numbers through the take-home pay calculator after this tool and the picture sharpens.

Example 3 — Pre-IPO startup vs FAANG

Offer A (pre-IPO startup): $130K base + $0 signing + $0 annual bonus + $400K equity over 4 years (paper RSU value at last 409A) + 0% match + $4K benefits. Nominal: 130 + 0 + 0 + 100 + 0 + 4 = $234K total comp. But pre-IPO equity carries real risk: the company may never IPO, the next round may be a down round, secondary markets are illiquid, and exit timing is opaque. Apply the conventional 50% stress-test discount to the paper equity: realistic = 130 + 0 + 0 + 50 + 0 + 4 = $184K.

Offer B (FAANG): $180K base + $25K signing (1-year) + $30K expected annual bonus + $200K equity over 4 years (publicly traded, sellable on vest) + 6% match + $10K benefits. Annualized: 180 + 25 + 30 + 50 + 10.8 + 10 = $305.8K total comp. (6% of $180K = $10.8K match.)

Even before discounting Offer A’s pre-IPO equity, Offer B wins by roughly $72K nominally. After the 50% pre-IPO discount, B wins by $122K — more than the startup’s entire base salary. The lesson is not that startups are bad; it’s that paper equity is not cash, and pretending it is hides decisions like this in plain sight. The startup is a reasonable choice if you believe the company will exit at 3–5x its current valuation and you want the optionality, but the calculator forces you to make that bet consciously rather than be talked into it by a sticker number.

Common Mistakes

• Comparing on base salary only.The headline base is rarely more than 60–70% of total comp at modern offers. A $150K base with no equity, no match, no bonus, and no signing is worse than a $130K base with $100K equity over 4 years and a 6% match — the math says so once you add it up. Always compute total comp; never decide on base alone.
• Using target bonus instead of expected bonus.A “15% target bonus” on a $200K base sounds like $30K. If the company typically pays 60% of target across a normal year, the expected number is $18K — a 40% haircut you only discover after signing. Ask the recruiter directly: “What percentage of the bonus plan has been paid in each of the last three years?” If they won’t answer, assume 70% of target as a working number.
• Valuing pre-IPO equity at face.The 409A valuation is a tax document, not a market price. Apply a 30–50% discount to any pre-IPO equity grant for the calculator’s purposes — the higher end of that range if the company is more than three years away from an exit, the lower end if a credible IPO timeline is publicly discussed. Then run the comparison both ways: at face and at the discount. If the offer only wins at face value, you’re betting the company, not picking a job.
• Ignoring 401(k) match. A 6% employer match on a $180K salary is $10,800 a year of free money. Skipping the contribution to free up cash flow is the single highest-leverage mistake in personal finance. The calculator rolls match into total comp on the assumption that you will actually contribute enough to capture it.
• Double-counting benefits you don’t use.Tuition reimbursement is worth $0 if you’re not in school. A gold-tier health plan is worth less if your spouse already covers the family. Be honest about which benefits you’ll use and enter only that dollar value in the benefits field. Healthcare is typically $5–12K for individual coverage and $15–25K for family — use those ranges as ceilings, not defaults.
• Mixing different vesting horizons.One offer vests equity over 4 years, another over 6. If you compare total grant size without dividing by vest length, you are inflating the slower-vesting offer’s perceived value by 50%. The calculator forces per-year normalization, but the mistake is easy to make on a napkin.
• Ignoring state tax differences. Texas, Florida, Washington, Nevada, Tennessee, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Alaska have no state income tax. California taxes up to 13.3%, New York up to 10.9% (plus NYC’s ~3.9% local), New Jersey up to 10.75%. On a $250K offer that delta can be $20K+ per year. The COL adjustment handles consumer prices but not tax — pair the calculator with take-home pay for the final net-of-tax answer.

When This Calculator Decides For You

1. Whether to take a 25% raise to a higher COL city.A 25% bump from NYC (index 100) to SF (index 130) is a 4% pay cut in real purchasing power. From NYC to Austin (index 85) it’s a 47% real raise. The calculator surfaces the inversion in one click — and a 25% headline raise is usually a real raise only if the destination city’s index is no more than 25% above your origin’s.
2. FAANG vs startup.FAANG offers tend to look smaller on paper than startup offers because FAANG equity is publicly priced (boring) and startup equity is face-valued at the latest 409A (flashy). Run both through the calculator with a 30–50% stress-test on the startup equity. If the FAANG number still wins, that’s your answer — and if the startup wins only at face value, you are buying a lottery ticket, not a job.
3. Remote vs in-office negotiation lever.If a remote offer comes in $20K below an in-office offer, it’s often the better deal once you back out the commute, work expenses, and relocation costs. Run the in-office offer through our true hourly rate calculator and compare per-hour, then use the difference to negotiate the remote offer up. The job offer comparison calculator gives you the line-item starting point for that conversation.
4. Whether to push back on signing.If the calculator shows Offer A losing to Offer B by $15K nominal, asking Offer A for a $20K signing bonus annualized over the one-year cliff closes the gap entirely — and signing is the easiest line item for a recruiter to move because it doesn’t set internal salary precedent. The calculator tells you the exact dollar ask that flips the decision.
5. Weighting non-financial factors when delta is small.If the adjusted gap is under 10%, the offers are close enough that team, manager, technology stack, growth potential, and lifestyle should drive the decision rather than the dollar number. The calculator’s job in that case is to give you permission to stop optimizing the spreadsheet — the spreadsheet has spoken; the rest is judgment.

What This Calculator Doesn’t Model

• Taxes — pre-tax only. The total-comp number is gross, before federal, FICA, state, and local income tax. Two offers with identical adjusted total comp can land different net amounts because of state-tax differences (TX/FL/WA = 0%, CA up to 13.3%, NY up to 10.9%) and city-level taxes (NYC ~3.9%, San Francisco employer-side payroll tax that compresses offers indirectly). For a defensible final number, run each offer through take-home pay after this tool.
• Commute and lifestyle factors. A $250K SF offer with a 90-minute commute and a $230K offer five minutes from your front door are not really equivalent — the shorter commute is worth roughly $15K/year in real per-hour terms at this income. Pair the comparison with our true hourly rate calculator to price commute and unpaid-overtime hours into the decision.
• Growth potential and career capital. A junior role at a marquee employer can be worth a 20% lifetime-earnings premium over a senior role at an unknown company because of where it routes you next. The calculator only sees the next 12 months. Hiring managers, mentors, and the trajectory you imagine for yourself are all worth more than the spreadsheet output when both offers are within 10% of each other.
• Equity dilution and repricing risk.Pre-IPO equity grants assume the current per-share valuation holds. A down-round can dilute existing grants by 30–50% overnight; a flat round still dilutes via the option pool refresh. Treat the discount in Example 3 as a floor, not a ceiling, for early-stage companies.
• Partner career and the two-body problem.If your partner is a professional whose career also needs a job market, the calculator’s purchasing-power answer for “move to Austin” can be entirely wrong because their employability cratered or doubled. Cities with deeper labor markets (NYC, SF, London) carry an unpriced two-career premium that calculators cannot see.

For the full picture beyond just compensation, pair this calculator with the rest of the career calculators page: run each offer through take-home pay to see the net-of-tax number, use cost-of-living for a deeper city-by-city purchasing-power read, the salary-to-hourly calculator to translate the headline number into a per-hour rate, and the true hourly rate calculator to back out commute and work expenses. The job offer comparison calculator is the entry point; the others sharpen the answer one dimension at a time.