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Should I take the job?

Put up to three offers side by side. Salary, bonus, equity, 401(k) match and health costs go through real federal, state and city taxes, then get adjusted for what things cost where you'd live and the hours you'd spend getting there.

Start from
Cash
Equity
Benefits
Where you'd live
Time
Cash
Equity

Paper value is shares × the latest preferred price. Common is usually worth less, and dilution is coming. Model it in Paper Money →

Benefits
Where you'd live
Time

You, at any of these jobs

Filing status
20%

Startup equity is a lottery ticket: it's usually worth zero, sometimes worth a lot, and paid after investors. The odds scale its paper value. For dilution, preferences and exits, try Paper Money.

From offer letter to bank account, over 4 years

  • Take-home
  • 401(k) & HSA
  • Taxes
  • Health premiums
  • Startup equity you likely won’t see
ABig Tech, Seattle $1,259,800 on paper

$807,811 take-home + $113K saved = $921K after tax, or $860,279 at national-average prices (7% pricier than average).

BSeries B startup, SF $1,420,000 on paper

$486,270 take-home + $98K saved = $584K after tax, or $527,701 at national-average prices (10.7% pricier than average).

Side by side

A Big Tech, SeattleB Series B startup, SF
On paper
Year 1 total comp$269K$355K
4-year total comp$1.3M$1.4M
Equity share of 4-year comp31.8%50.7%
Vesting5/15/40/40 (Amazon-style)25% a year, 1-year cliff
Year 1, after tax
Taxes$67K$65K
Effective tax rate25.2%30.8%
Take-home$173K$122K
401(k) & HSA$28K$25K
Price level (US = 100)107.0110.7
After tax, cost-of-living adjusted$188K$132K
Over 4 years
Startup equity, expected$0$144K
After tax$921K$584K
After tax, cost-of-living adjusted$860K$528K
Each year, after tax and cost of living
Year 1$188K$132K
Year 2$203K$132K
Year 3$235K$132K
Year 4$235K$132K
Your time
Hours worked a year2,1062,640
Hours commuting a year273160
Effective hourly rate$90.40$47.12

Green marks the best of each row where more (or less) is clearly better.

About this tool

Who it's for
For anyone weighing two or three job offers, or a raise against a move.
What you can enter
For each offer: salary, bonus, sign-on bonuses, public RSUs or startup equity and its vesting, 401(k) match, health premiums, employer HSA money, where you'd live, office days, commute, hours and days off. For you: filing status, dependents, your 401(k) contribution and the odds startup equity pays out.
What it runs on
2026 federal, state and county tax law from the tax map's engine, 401(k) limits, and county price levels for cost of living. Sources and simplifications are under How this is calculated.
Who made it
Sam Wen, co-founder of Square. Free, no sign-up; it runs in your browser. Last updated .

Worked example: Public RSUs in Manhattan or a seed startup in Austin?.

Spot a mistake, or a rule that changed? Tell me.

Frequently asked questions

They offered me "unlimited PTO". How many days is that?

However many your future teammates actually take, minus the two you'll feel too guilty to use. Ask them, and put that in Days off. One real difference: unlimited PTO never accrues, so there's nothing to pay out when you leave. In California, where accrued vacation counts as wages and must be paid out, that can be worth a few weeks of salary on your way out the door.

Is a ping-pong table worth $10K of salary?

No. At a typical tech marginal rate, $10K of salary is about $6K after tax, every year, and it compounds into your next offer. A ping-pong table costs a few hundred dollars once and is shared by everyone. Free lunch is a better perk: at $15 a day over 230 office days, it's about $3,500 a year you don't spend, untaxed. Still not $10K.

The recruiter says my options will be worth $2M after the next round. Should I enter $2M?

Enter it as the paper value, then drag the odds slider down to reality. Most venture-backed startups never return much to common shareholders, and common is paid after every investor's liquidation preference. The 100% "Recruiter math" setting exists so you can see the number they want you to see. Paper Money will show you what a down round does to it.

The job is remote, but the company is in New York. Do I owe New York tax?

Possibly. New York's "convenience of the employer" rule taxes nonresidents who work remotely for a New York office by choice rather than necessity, and a few other states have similar rules. This tool taxes you only where you live, so a remote job for a New York company can look better here than on your W-2.

Is a 5/15/40/40 vesting schedule a red flag?

It's a feature, for the company. Only 20% of the grant vests in your first two years, which is why these offers come with big year-1 and year-2 sign-on bonuses to fill the gap. Those usually have to be paid back if you leave within a year. Compare the Year 1 and 4-year results: back-loaded offers look worse the sooner you might leave.

How much is my commute costing me?

Forty-five minutes each way, five days a week, is about 350 hours a year, or nearly nine 40-hour weeks you aren't paid for. Set the office days and commute and watch the effective hourly rate. Switching to Hourly rate as the judge is the fastest way to win a return-to-office argument.

Mostly jokes. Not tax, financial, or career advice. Do negotiate, though.

How this is calculated

What's included

  • Pay: base salary, the bonus at target, and sign-on bonuses in the year they're paid.
  • Equity vests month by month at each year's rate, with nothing before a cliff. Public RSUs are taxed as wages when they vest. Startup equity is its paper value minus the cost to exercise, times your odds of an exit, and taxed as wages, as double-trigger RSUs and options cashed out in an acquisition mostly are.
  • Taxes come from the Tax Map's engine with 2026 law: federal income tax and FICA, state income tax and payroll programs, and county income taxes such as New York City's and Maryland's when you pick a county.
  • 401(k): you contribute the same amount at every job, up to the $24,500 limit. It skips income tax but not FICA. The match is a share of what you put in, up to a share of salary (on salary up to $360,000).
  • Health: your premiums are paid pre-tax; employer HSA money counts like the match.
  • Cost of living: after-tax value divided by the county's (or state's) price level, so a dollar buys the same everywhere. US average = 100.
  • Hourly rate: the average year's adjusted after-tax value over 260 weekdays minus your days off, at your weekly hours, plus the round-trip commute on office days.

Simplifications

  • Salary, bonus and share price stay flat for four years: no raises, refreshers, or stock moves, and every year uses 2026 tax law.
  • One earner. A spouse's income would change your brackets, but it would at every offer, so it's left out.
  • Taxes follow where you live. Remote work across state lines (New York's convenience rule) and city income taxes outside the Tax Map's counties aren't modeled.
  • Startup equity is taxed in the year it vests rather than the year of the exit, without ISO, QSBS or AMT treatment. A real payout lands all at once and could be taxed more.
  • Property and sales taxes are left out: price levels already reflect rents and local prices, so they'd be counted twice.
  • Your 401(k) and the match count at face value, though they're taxed when withdrawn, and the match is assumed vested. Sign-on clawbacks and equity you forfeit by leaving early aren't modeled.
  • This is an estimate for comparing offers, not tax or financial advice.

Sources