Alaska job offer comparison calculator

What the tool adds up

Five numbers per offer, and only one of them is on the front page of the letter.

• Salary, as quoted.
• Bonus, at the amount you actually expect to receive.
• The employer retirement match, computed as a percentage of salary.
• Insurance premiums, twelve months of your share, subtracted.
• Commuting cost, twelve months, subtracted.

The result is one annual figure per offer and the gap between them. That is a deliberately narrow definition of value, and it exists because the numbers inside it are the ones people are most likely to know and least likely to add up.

The worked example, at the default offers

Offer A: $95,000 salary, plus $8,000 bonus, plus a 4% match worth $3,800, less $2,640 of insurance premiums and $2,160 of commuting. All in, $102,000.

Offer B: $104,000 salary, no bonus, plus a 3% match worth $3,120, less $4,560 of insurance and $480 of commuting. All in, $102,080.

Offer B wins by $80 a year.

That is the point of the page. The headline gap between the two offers is $9,000, which most people would treat as decisive, and it survives contact with the benefits as $80. A candidate who took offer B for the salary and one who took offer A for the shorter commute would both have been making roughly the same financial decision, and only one of them would have known it.

The insurance line is doing most of the work. Offer B costs $160 a month more for cover, which is $1,920 a year, and B also carries a weaker match, worth $680 less. What B gains on salary it hands back on benefits.

A second example: when the higher salary loses

Nudge offer B insurance from $380 to $400 a month, which is one plan tier or one extra dependant.

Offer B all in falls to $101,840. Offer A is unchanged at $102,000, so A now wins by $160 while still being $9,000 behind on salary. The tool adds a line saying so explicitly: the higher salary is the worse offer, benefits and costs reverse the ranking.

Two other changes are worth running, because both describe things that happen after the offer is signed.

The bonus does not pay. Set offer A bonus to $0, the figure a discretionary bonus is worth if the year goes badly, and A falls to $94,000. Offer B wins by $8,080. The entire comparison hinged on a number nobody guaranteed.

The match is not earned. Set offer A match to 0%, which is what it is worth if you do not contribute enough to trigger it, and A falls to $98,200 against B at $102,080. B wins by $3,880.

Neither match vests. If you expect to move again inside the vesting period, set both matches to 0%. Offer A becomes $98,200 and offer B becomes $98,960, so B wins by $760, and the two offers are closer than either the salaries or the all-in figures suggested.

Run all three of those pessimistic cases before you decide. If an offer only wins when every conditional component pays out in full, it has not really won.

The offer letter and the benefits summary are different documents

The letter carries the salary, the title, the start date and usually a target bonus. Almost every figure this calculator needs beyond the salary lives somewhere else: in the benefits summary, in the summary plan description for the retirement plan, and in the plan documents for health cover.

That split is not a trick, but it has a predictable effect. Candidates negotiate hard on the number in front of them and accept whatever the other document happens to say, even though the second document routinely moves the comparison by more than the salary concession they won. On the default inputs, the whole $9,000 salary advantage of offer B is consumed by an insurance premium difference of $160 a month and a match one percentage point lower.

Ask for the benefits summary before you accept, not after. An employer that cannot produce the employee premium at the tier you would actually enrol in, or the vesting schedule for the match, is telling you something about how the plan is administered. The figures are not confidential and they are not difficult to look up internally.

Why is a 401(k) match not worth its face value?

Two reasons, and both are conditions attached to money that gets quoted as though it were unconditional.

You have to earn it. A match is a match: the employer contributes only in proportion to what you contribute, up to the stated cap. A 4% match on $95,000 is worth $3,800 only if you are putting in enough of your own pay to collect all of it. Somebody contributing 1% collects a fraction. The tool computes the full figure because that is the offer, and it is your job to know whether you will be in a position to take it.

You have to keep it. Employer contributions vest on a schedule. A cliff schedule gives you nothing until a stated anniversary and everything after it; a graded schedule releases a share each year. Leave before the cliff and the match you were counting on goes back to the plan. Your own contributions are always yours; the employer money is not, until it vests.

So the two questions to ask before you count a match are what percentage you must contribute to collect all of it, and what the vesting schedule is. Both have precise answers that a recruiter can supply in writing. Our investing section covers what the match is worth once it is in the account and compounding.

A discretionary bonus is not compensation

A bonus described as target, discretionary, or subject to company performance is a possibility with a number attached. It belongs in the calculation at the amount you actually expect, which is not the same as the amount printed.

The question that gets you a usable figure is historical rather than hypothetical: what percentage of target was paid in each of the last three years, and to people at this level. An answer of 100%, 95% and 90% describes a bonus that is close to compensation. An answer of 100%, 40% and 0% describes something else, and the fact that it is being quoted at target anyway is itself information.

Signing bonuses are a separate category and usually carry a clawback if you leave inside twelve or twenty-four months. A signing bonus is not annual compensation, so putting it in the bonus field overstates every year after the first.

What the comparison leaves out

The tool is explicit about its own boundaries, and they are wide enough to change an answer.

• State income tax. Two jobs in two states can differ by thousands of dollars of tax on identical salaries, and that gap is frequently larger than the one this page computes. Check the state tax pages and the take-home pay tools before treating an $80 difference as the answer.
• Equity. Options and restricted stock have their own vesting, their own tax treatment and, at a private company, no reliable price.
• Paid leave. Ten days against twenty-five days is close to two weeks of unpaid time, and there is no line for it here.
• Retirement plan quality. Two plans with the same match can carry very different fund menus and fees.
• Remote work. The commute field is the closest this comes to valuing it, and for some households that field is the largest number on the page.
• Everything that is not money. The manager, the work, the stability of the employer, and the title you will hold in three years are outside the scope of any calculator.

Common mistakes comparing two offers

• Comparing salary to salary. The default inputs turn a $9,000 gap into $80. This is the ordinary case rather than a contrived one.
• Counting the match without checking vesting. Money that reverts to the plan if you leave in eighteen months should not be weighed the same as salary.
• Counting a bonus at target. Use the amount actually paid in recent years, and run the comparison again with it set to zero.
• Ignoring the premium difference. Employee contributions to health cover vary widely between employers, and $160 a month is $1,920 a year of real money.
• Forgetting the deductible behind the premium. A cheaper premium attached to a much higher deductible and out-of-pocket maximum is not automatically cheaper. The insurance section covers how to compare two plans rather than two premiums.
• Comparing gross pay across state lines. Same salary, different state, different take-home. That comparison has to be run after tax.
• Deciding on the number. The figure here is one input. It is the one people most often fail to compute, not the only one that matters.

What should you ask before you accept?

• Ask what percentage you must contribute to collect the full retirement match
• Ask for the vesting schedule in writing, including whether it is cliff or graded
• Ask what percentage of target bonus was paid in each of the last three years
• Ask for the full benefits summary, with the employee premium at the tier you would enrol in
• Ask for the deductible and out-of-pocket maximum, not just the premium
• Ask how many paid days off, and whether they carry over
• Ask about any clawback attached to a signing bonus
• Ask whether the role is remote, hybrid or in-office, and how many days are required

Every item on that list has a factual answer that an employer can provide before you sign, and almost none of them appear in the offer letter without being asked for.

This page compares the money in two offers. It is not employment advice or a tax calculation. See the disclaimer and our methodology.