CalcStack — free, instant, no signup. The interactive calculator loads automatically.
Base salary is the sticker price. Match, health premiums, PTO, and real hours are the car.
Two offers differ by more than base salary: the 401(k) match is cash, the employer's share of health premiums is money you never spend, and PTO is paid days off worth salary ÷ 260 each. Then the divisor nobody applies — the hours you actually work. This calculator prices the whole package for two offers side by side and divides by real hours, because a $70k job with 6% match, good coverage, and 20 PTO days genuinely beats an $80k job with none of it.
Anyone comparing job offers uses it to price the layer recruiters count on you ignoring — match, health premiums, PTO — and then divides by REAL weekly hours, because a 50-hour job and a 45-hour job do not work the same year.
Stack the benefits layer: 6% match ($4,200) + employer health premiums ($7,800/yr vs $2,400) + 10 extra PTO days ($2,692) puts the $70k job at $87,385 total vs $85,477 — before hours. At 45 vs 50 real hours a week, the effective rates are $40.44 vs $34.18 an hour. The lower-base job pays 18% more per hour of your life.
Anything that displaces spending or is cash: 401(k) match (face value, adjusted for vesting), employer health/dental premiums, HSA seed money, stipends, and PTO. Skip equity unless it's liquid — an RSU at a public company counts at a discount; startup options count at what they'll pay you this year, which is usually zero. Tuition reimbursement counts only if you'll actually use it.
Because salaried hours are elastic and the employer knows it. A job nominally 40 hours that runs 50 has a hidden 25% pay cut relative to its own headline rate. Total comp ÷ actual hours is the only number that survives contact with your calendar — and it is the number to quote when negotiating: "at my real hours, this offer pays less per hour than my current role."