Job Offer Comparison Calculator: Net Pay After Work-Related Costs

What this calculator does

This calculator compares two job offers on what is left after tax and after the costs that come with the job itself. For each offer you enter base salary, bonus percentage, annual equity and any sign-on bonus, plus the monthly costs the role adds: commuting (fuel, tolls, parking or transit), extra childcare, pet care, and food and work clothing. It adds up first-year gross compensation, applies an assumed tax rate, subtracts twelve months of those costs, and shows the difference line by line. It also works out how much one offer's base salary would have to change for the two to come out even.

It is for anyone weighing an in-office role against a remote or hybrid one, or two offers with different mixes of salary, bonus and equity. The costs are yours to estimate; the calculator does not supply local prices.

How the math works

First-year gross compensation is base salary, plus base times the bonus percentage, plus annual equity, plus the sign-on bonus. The calculator applies one flat 28% rate to that total as a stand-in for federal, state and payroll taxes together; it does not use tax brackets, and the section below shows how that assumption compares with 2026 federal figures. Work-related costs are entered monthly and multiplied by twelve. They are subtracted after tax because they are paid from take-home pay: IRS Publication 463 treats the cost of getting between home and your regular workplace, including parking there, as a personal commuting expense that is not deductible.

Net after costs is gross compensation times 0.72, minus the annual costs. The equalizing salary change divides the gap between the two offers by 0.72 and by one plus the bonus percentage, because a raise in base salary also raises a bonus that is set as a percentage of base. The in-office days selector is a description of the role; the costs you enter are what the calculation uses.

Worked example

These are the default inputs. Offer A is an in-office role: $160,000 base, 10% bonus, $30,000 of equity and a $15,000 sign-on bonus, $221,000 in the first year. Offer B is remote: $145,000 base, 10% bonus, $25,000 of equity and a $10,000 sign-on bonus, $194,500.

• After the assumed 28% tax: $159,120 for Offer A and $140,040 for Offer B.
• Offer A's work-related costs: $6,600 commuting, $7,200 extra childcare, $4,200 pet care and $2,400 food and attire, $20,400 a year. Offer B has none.
• Net after costs: $138,720 for Offer A and $140,040 for Offer B, so Offer B comes out $1,320 ahead despite $26,500 less in gross pay.
• To break even: Offer A's base would need to rise by about $1,667, to $161,667, because at 72% after tax and with the 10% bonus each $1 of base adds about $0.79 of net.

The result is close, which is typical: here $20,400 of costs almost exactly offsets a $26,500 difference in gross pay, and small changes to the cost estimates or the tax assumption move the answer from one offer to the other. The next two sections show the two biggest of those sensitivities.

How the flat 28% compares with 2026 federal figures

The table computes federal income tax for a single filer with the 2026 brackets and $16,100 standard deduction from IRS release IR-2025-103, plus the employee's Social Security tax of 6.2% up to the $184,500 wage base, Medicare tax of 1.45%, and the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax above $200,000, per IRS Publication 15. It treats all compensation, including equity and bonuses, as wages and leaves out state tax and pre-tax deductions such as 401(k) contributions.

Before state tax, a single filer's combined federal rate is below 28% up to roughly $300,000 of pay and above it beyond that. In a state with an income tax the true total is higher, and for married couples filing jointly it is usually lower. Because the same rate is applied to both offers, an error in the rate mostly scales the gap rather than reversing it; it matters most when the offers are close. Sign-on bonuses and equity are also often withheld at the 22% supplemental rate, which affects when tax is collected but not how much is owed for the year.

Pre-tax benefits that can shrink the in-office costs

Two employer benefits can pay part of the in-office costs with pre-tax money, which the calculator does not model. For 2026, IRS Publication 15-B allows up to $340 a month for qualified parking and up to $340 a month for transit passes and commuter vehicles to be excluded from wages, and raises the dependent care assistance limit to $7,500 a year ($3,750 if married filing separately), up from $5,000.

With both benefits, Offer A's net after costs rises from $138,720 to about $141,878, and it comes out about $1,838 ahead of Offer B instead of $1,320 behind. Both depend on the employer offering the benefit. The dependent care saving also applies only if the total dependent care you pay for, not just the extra amount the in-office role causes, fits under the $7,500 limit; a family already using its full allowance for other childcare gains nothing more. To approximate the effect in the calculator, reduce the monthly cost inputs by the tax saved.