Free answer · 4 minutes · Pathwise

Which job offer should I take? Compare the real numbers.

The offer with the biggest number on it is often not the best offer. Put your current job and up to three offers side by side, and see what each one is actually worth once the bonus, the equity, the tax and the city are all honest.

Free answer, no account. Dropdowns and sliders, not essays.

A ₹48L offer and a ₹28L offer are not ₹20L apart. Once you discount a bonus that rarely pays in full, an ESOP grant years from any liquidity event, a one-year cliff you might not clear, and the cost of living in a more expensive city — the gap can close completely, and sometimes it reverses. The arithmetic is not hard. It is just never done, because no offer letter is written to make it easy.

What it adjusts, and why

Four corrections, applied to every option including staying where you are. You see each assumption and you can change any of them.

01
Variable pay, at what it actually pays

A 20% bonus is a ceiling, not a promise. You pick how reliably it has paid out, and the target is discounted to match — the difference between a bank with a decade of full payouts and a startup on its first cycle is most of the offer.

02
Equity, after a haircut you control

An ESOP figure at face value is the most misleading line on any Indian offer letter. Grants are discounted by company stage, cut off at the cliff, and counted only for the portion that actually vests while you're there.

03
Cost of living, on the part of your income it touches

Moving to a city 20% more expensive doesn't cost you 20% of your salary — it costs 20% of what you actually spend. We adjust your living costs, not your whole package, because the usual shortcut badly overstates the penalty for high earners.

04
Tax and PF, to what reaches the bank

Every offer is converted to real monthly in-hand under the new regime, on fixed pay only. Folding an annual bonus into a monthly figure produces a number that never once appears in your account.

The four traps it's built to catch

Each of these is a specific structure that makes an offer look better than it is. All four are flagged by name when they appear in yours.

The bonus-heavy offer

A big headline where a third is variable. Worth what it pays, not what it promises.

The ESOP mirage

Crores on paper at a company years from any liquidity event. Discounted hard, and shown as a range.

The gratuity cliff

Leaving at four years and eight months forfeits a sum that appears on neither offer letter.

The quiet pay cut

A bigger total built on smaller guaranteed pay. Flagged the moment it appears.

What's free, and what isn't

Free

Which option comes out ahead on your own priorities, and the real monthly in-hand for every offer on the table after tax and PF. That is a genuine answer, not a teaser — you can act on it and never pay us anything.

₹99 one-time

The reasoning behind it — everything you'd need to argue with the answer, or to go back and negotiate a better one.

  • Risk-adjusted totals — what each offer is worth once the paper value is stripped out
  • Market benchmark — whether the winner is even a good offer, or just the best of a bad set
  • Red-flag audit — clawbacks, thin basic pay, bonus-heavy structures, long notice clauses
  • The cost of leaving — notice buyout, forfeited gratuity, equity left on the table
  • Negotiation script — which line has slack, and the number to ask for
  • What would flip it — how fragile the answer is, and exactly what would change it

One-time payment. No subscription, no account, no card stored.

Stop comparing headline numbers.

Your current job is one of the options. Sometimes it wins, and that is worth knowing before you hand in a resignation.

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