Calculator
Job Offer Comparison
Job-offer comparisons that only look at gross salary are misleading: a $180,000 offer in a high-tax, high-cost city can leave someone with less spendable cash than a $150,000 offer somewhere cheaper. This compares exactly two offers side by side and produces one number — how much more, or less, disposable cash per year one offer leaves you than the other, after federal tax, FICA, a state or local tax rate, housing, and a cost-of-living adjustment on everything else, with every step of the arithmetic shown.
Which offer leaves you more
Enter both offers below, then press Calculate to see which one actually leaves you more.
Household
Filing status is shared — this is one household's decision, not two separate ones, so both offers are taxed the same way.
Baseline monthly living costs is groceries, transport, and everyday spending — entered once. Each offer then scales it by its own cost-of-living index below, so you never have to guess a second city's grocery bill from scratch.
Shared by the household
Groceries, transport, everyday spending — before either offer's COL index
Figures use published 2026 federal amounts. Tax law changes; re-check against IRS, CMS, and HHS sources before acting. State and local tax is a single rate you enter yourself, not real brackets — the site doesn't model all fifty states.
Offer A
Pretax contribution — 401(k), HSA, and the like — lowers what federal and state tax are calculated on, but not Social Security or Medicare wages. Those are levied on gross pay no matter what a paycheck defers.
Cost-of-living index applies to everything except housing — enter 100 if this offer's everyday spending matches the baseline you set above, or higher/lower to scale it. Housing is already entered directly, so the index never touches it.
State + local tax rate is a single blended rate you supply, not real brackets — enter 0% for a no-income-tax state like Texas, Florida, Washington, Nevada, Tennessee, South Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska, or New Hampshire. This is a simplification: the site models federal brackets in detail but has no equivalent table for all fifty states.
One-time, year one only
Doesn't reduce FICA
0% for TX, FL, WA, NV, TN, SD, WY, AK, NH
Rent, or P&I + tax + insurance
100 = the shared baseline
Leave at 0 if you already live there
Offer B
Pretax contribution — 401(k), HSA, and the like — lowers what federal and state tax are calculated on, but not Social Security or Medicare wages. Those are levied on gross pay no matter what a paycheck defers.
Cost-of-living index applies to everything except housing — enter 100 if this offer's everyday spending matches the baseline you set above, or higher/lower to scale it. Housing is already entered directly, so the index never touches it.
State + local tax rate is a single blended rate you supply, not real brackets — enter 0% for a no-income-tax state like Texas, Florida, Washington, Nevada, Tennessee, South Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska, or New Hampshire. This is a simplification: the site models federal brackets in detail but has no equivalent table for all fifty states.
One-time, year one only
Doesn't reduce FICA
0% for TX, FL, WA, NV, TN, SD, WY, AK, NH
Rent, or P&I + tax + insurance
100 = the shared baseline
Leave at 0 if you already live there
For educational purposes only. Results are estimates and do not constitute financial, tax, or legal advice. Consult a qualified professional before making any financial decisions.
How to use it
Pick one filing status for the household — it applies to both offers, since it's one decision, not two — and set a baseline monthly living cost for groceries, transport, and everyday spending.
Fill in each offer's salary, bonus, and pretax retirement contribution, then its state or local tax rate and monthly housing cost. Enter a cost-of-living index for everything else — 100 means it matches the baseline you set above.
Press Calculate, or flip on Real-Time Calculation to have it update as you type. If either offer requires moving, add its one-time relocation cost and leave the other at zero.
Press Example for a worked case: a lower salary in a no-income-tax city against a larger one in a high-tax, high-cost city.
Why gross salary is the wrong number
A $180,000 offer in a high-tax, high-cost city can leave less in your pocket than a $150,000 offer somewhere cheaper. State tax, FICA, rent, and everyday spending all differ by city, and none of them show up when two salaries are compared side by side as raw numbers.
This tool runs both offers through the same subtraction — federal tax, FICA, state tax, housing, and a cost-of-living-adjusted estimate of everything else — down to one figure: how much more, or less, each offer actually leaves you to spend in a year.
A pretax 401(k) or HSA contribution lowers what federal and state tax are calculated on, but not what Social Security and Medicare are calculated on — payroll tax is levied on gross pay no matter what a paycheck defers. Getting that backwards quietly favors whichever offer contributes more.
Assumptions
- State and local tax is a single blended rate you enter yourself, not real state brackets. The site models federal brackets in detail; it has no equivalent table for all fifty states, so use your best estimate of the effective rate.
- The cost-of-living index applies only to the shared non-housing baseline — groceries, transport, everyday spending. Housing is entered directly per offer and is never scaled by the index.
- Disposable income is the ongoing, steady-state figure, and still includes a signing bonus if one was entered, since it is taxed alongside salary in the same calculation. The year-one figure, shown only when a relocation cost is entered, additionally nets that cost out.
- A pretax retirement or HSA contribution reduces federal and state taxable income but not FICA wages — Social Security and Medicare are levied on gross pay regardless of what a paycheck defers.
- Not modeled: equity compensation, an employer's 401(k) match, and differences in health insurance premiums between offers. Each can move the real answer by a meaningful amount and is worth pricing separately.