What the Salary Offer Comparator does
This comparator puts two to five job offers side by side and turns each one into a single yearly figure you can rank: base salary plus the bonus you actually expect, equity spread over its vesting period, retirement match and employer-paid benefits, minus what the commute costs in fares and time, adjusted for how expensive the place is to live. It also shows what each offer is worth per hour once commuting is counted, and whether the winner changes if the bonus and equity pay nothing.
Headline salaries are easy to compare and often misleading. A higher base in a dearer city with five office days a week can be worth less than a lower one you can do from home. Every figure here is one you enter; there are no built-in salary surveys or cost-of-living tables, because those would be guesses about your situation.
How to use it
- Set your currency, how many weeks a year you actually work, and - if you want time to count - what an hour of your own time is worth to you.
- For each offer, enter base salary, target bonus and the share of it you realistically expect to be paid, the total equity grant and its vesting period, any retirement match and employer-paid benefits.
- Add the commute: office days per week, fare per day and the return journey in minutes. For a remote role leave these at zero.
- If the offers are in different places, enter a cost-of-living index for each, with 100 for the place you treat as normal. A figure of 115 means living there costs 15% more.
- Read the ranking, then check the floor line: if the winner only wins because of a bonus or unvested shares, you can see by how much.
Reading the results
Effective value is the gross package minus commuting, divided by the cost-of-living index over 100. It answers 'what is this job worth to me per year, in my reference place's money' - not what appears on a payslip.
The floor assumes no bonus is paid and the equity is worth nothing. The upside assumes the bonus pays 150% of target. The distance between them is how much of the offer depends on things outside your control.
Per hour divides the effective value by contracted hours plus commuting hours. It is the fairest way to compare a 45-hour week with a 37.5-hour one.
Worked example: office, remote or start-up
Take 46 working weeks and value your time at 20 an hour. The city office pays 100,000 base, a 10% bonus (10,000), an 80,000 share grant over four years (20,000 a year), a 5% retirement match (5,000) and 6,000 of benefits: 141,000 gross. Three office days a week at 12 a day cost 3 x 46 x 12 = 1,656 in fares, and an hour's return journey adds 138 hours, valued at 2,760. Effective value: 136,584.
The remote role pays 115,000 base, a 3% match (3,450) and 4,000 of benefits: 122,450. It is in a place with a cost-of-living index of 110, so its effective value is 122,450 / 1.10 = 111,318. The start-up pays 90,000 plus a 200,000 grant over four years; discounted by 60% for risk, that is 20,000 a year, so 110,000 for a 45-hour week.
The office job ranks first by about 25,000. But strip out bonus and equity and it falls to 106,584 - below the remote role's 111,318. The comparator flags that the ranking rests on the bonus being paid and the shares keeping their value.
Formulas and scoring rules
- Expected bonus
bonus = base x target% x expected payout%- Equity per year
equity = grant / vesting years x (1 - risk discount%)An even average; the Total Compensation Calculator shows cliffs and back-loaded schedules year by year.- Commute
fares = office days x weeks x fare; time = office days x weeks x minutes / 60 x value of an hour- Effective value
(base + bonus + equity + match + benefits - fares - time) x 100 / cost-of-living index- Per hour
effective value / (hours per week x weeks + commute hours)Figures are shown to the nearest whole unit; nothing is rounded during the calculation.
How this differs from a salary-to-hourly converter
The Salary to Hourly Calculator on this site converts one salary between hourly, weekly, monthly and yearly figures. That is useful when you already know the number to compare. This tool is for the step before: turning several whole offers - with bonuses, shares, benefits, commutes and different cities - into numbers that can be compared at all. It does not duplicate the conversion; use the converter afterwards if you need a pay-period figure.
What to ask before trusting the numbers
Ask how the bonus was paid in the last two or three years, not just its target. For shares, ask for the number of shares, the latest valuation or share price, the vesting schedule and cliff, and what happens if you leave. For benefits, ask what the employer actually pays - the premium, not the policy's headline cover. Those answers go straight into the fields above.
Limitations: what the result does not prove
- It does not calculate income tax. Offers in the same country are usually taxed alike, but if they are in different countries or pay partly in shares, net pay can rank differently from gross.
- Cost-of-living indices are averages. Your own costs - rent for the home you would choose, childcare, travel home - may move far more or less than any index.
- Equity is valued at the figure and discount you enter. Unlisted shares can end up worth nothing, and listed ones move with the market.
- Money is not the whole decision. Role, manager, learning, security and hours matter, and no calculator can weigh them for you.
Privacy: where your data goes
Everything you paste, type or drop is processed in this browser tab. It is not uploaded, logged, stored or sent to analytics. Session recording and tag-manager scripts are switched off on this page.
Standards and sources
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics - Employer Costs for Employee Compensation
- US SEC Investor.gov - Employee stock options
Frequently asked questions
How do I compare two job offers with different bonuses?
Enter each bonus as a percentage of base and the payout you realistically expect. A 20% target that has paid 60% of target for three years is worth 12% of base, not 20%. Then look at the floor line to see how each offer does if nothing is paid.
How should I value stock options or RSUs in a job offer?
Divide the grant's current value by the vesting years for a yearly figure, and apply a risk discount you believe in. Listed-company RSUs might deserve little or no discount; options in an early start-up can reasonably be discounted by half or more, because many never become worth anything.
Is a remote job worth less money?
Not automatically. Remote work removes fares and commuting time, which this tool counts, but the role may be priced for a different place. Put both into the calculation - commute for the office job, cost-of-living index for each location - and compare effective values rather than headline salaries.
What value should I put on my commuting time?
There is no single right number. Some people use their own hourly pay after tax; others use a lower figure because they can read or rest on the train. Leave it at zero to count fares only, then try a realistic figure and see whether the ranking changes.
Where do I get a cost-of-living index?
Use a source you trust and that fits your life, such as the rent of a comparable home in each place, or an official price index for regions. Enter 100 for the place you treat as normal and scale the others to it. The tool deliberately ships no index of its own.
Should a sign-on bonus change my decision?
It is paid once, so the comparator shows it only in the year-one figure, not in the yearly effective value. Check whether it must be repaid if you leave within a year or two; a clawback turns it into a loan until the date passes.
Last reviewed by the A2Z.Tools team against the sources listed above.
