Workbook — Career · Created October 5, 2026 · 2 min read
Break-Even Salary Calculator
The raise an offer has to include before it is actually a raise.
A bigger base salary can still be a pay cut. A smaller match, a pricier health plan, less paid time off or a longer commute can quietly cost more than the raise adds — and the only way to know is to put a dollar figure on every line.
What This Workbook Does
- Your current job and two offers side by side, with every benefit converted to dollars: bonus, signing money, employer retirement contributions, health coverage and HSA money, paid time off and employer-paid life and disability insurance.
- A section for what each job costs you — commuting and other expenses — entered as positive numbers and subtracted for you.
- A total compensation equivalent for each column, then the break-even raise: the base salary each offer would need to tie your current job.
- Five assumptions at the top — comparison horizon, work hours, marginal tax rate and two insurance cost rates — that drive the benefit values.
Raising base salary also raises the bonus, the retirement contribution, the value of paid leave and the insurance coverage, so a dollar of base adds more than a dollar of total compensation. The workbook shows that multiplier and uses it to solve for the break-even base — which is why the answer is smaller than the simple difference in totals.
How to Use It
- Fill in the five assumptions at the top. The defaults are reasonable starting points, but get a real term-life quote if you can.
- Put your current job in the first column. Everything else is measured against it.
- Put the first offer in the second column and a second offer, or a counter-offer scenario, in the third.
- Enter paid time off in hours per year, except holidays, which are entered in days.
- Enter job costs as positive numbers; the workbook subtracts them.
- Read the total compensation equivalent, then the break-even raise. A positive number is what the offer must add to its base to tie your current job; a negative number means it is already ahead by that much.
What It Will Not Do
Benefit values are estimates built from the assumptions you enter. The life and disability figures are what it would cost you to replace the coverage, not what the employer pays for it, and nothing here models income tax on salary or bonus, because it applies to every column alike. Your employer’s plan documents govern.