Salary is one line of the offer. Bonus, match, PTO, healthcare, and cost of living turn two "similar" offers into very different deals.
Cost of living index: pick a baseline city as 100 and scale the other (e.g., moving from Columbus (100) to Seattle (~118)). Online COL comparisons give the ratio.
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PTO is valued at your daily pay rate (salary ÷ 260 working days). The bottom line divides by the COL index, putting both offers in baseline-city dollars.
This job offer calculator compares two offers on total compensation rather than base salary alone. It factors in bonus, 401(k) match, paid time off, healthcare costs, and local cost of living to reveal which offer is genuinely worth more.
Each offer is reduced to total compensation — base salary plus bonus, employer 401(k) match, the value of paid time off, and minus healthcare costs — and then divided by a cost-of-living index so two offers in different cities are compared in real spending power. A higher salary in an expensive city can be worth less than a lower one somewhere cheaper.
Look past base salary to total compensation — bonus, retirement match, benefits, and PTO — then adjust for the cost of living where each job is located.
Total compensation is the full value of an offer: salary plus bonus, employer 401(k) match, the value of healthcare and PTO, and other perks.
A higher salary in an expensive city can buy less than a lower salary in a cheaper one. Adjusting for cost of living compares real spending power.
Look past base salary to total compensation — bonus, match, benefits, and PTO — then adjust for the cost of living where each job is located. The calculator does both.
A lot. A 20% higher salary in a city that's 30% more expensive leaves you worse off in real terms. Cost-of-living adjustment is what turns nominal pay into comparable purchasing power.
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