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On an $80k salary, a 15% hop is worth +$58,710 over five years — and the breakeven premium against $5k of switching costs is just 1.3%.
The "loyalty tax" is measurable: wage trackers (Atlanta Fed, ADP) have shown job switchers out-earning stayers most years since 2021, typically by 3–8% annually. On an $80k salary, a 15% hop premium compounding over five years produces $483,440 versus $424,731 for staying — a $58,710 gap, $53,857 in present value even after a $5,000 switching cost. The counterweight is the cost line most people never total: unvested 401(k) match, unvested RSUs, ESPP holding windows, a December departure that forfeits a full annual bonus, and a health-plan deductible that resets. This calculator runs both paths with honest growth assumptions and tells you the minimum premium that makes the jump pay — usually far lower than people assume.
Employees with an offer in hand use it before deciding: a 15% hop on $80k is +$58,710 over five years after switching costs, and the breakeven premium is just 1.3% — but unvested equity and bonus timing decide what the switch really costs.
Everything that evaporates or resets at the transition. Unvested 401(k) match is the classic (check your vesting schedule — cliff and graded schedules both bite); unvested RSUs and options are often the giant for tech workers (the grant statement shows the number exactly); ESPP discounts in the holding window; and bonus timing — a December resignation commonly forfeits the entire annual bonus, which alone can exceed every other cost combined. Health insurance resets too: a new plan means a fresh deductible, so mid-year switches after heavy medical spend cost the accumulated progress. Add signing bonuses on the OTHER side — they exist partly to cover these frictions, so net them against the cost, not against the premium.
It's deliberately conservative — and still shows switching winning. In reality, stayers typically get 3–5% merit cycles while switchers reset to market with each move, so applying identical growth to both paths UNDERSTATES the hop advantage. The assumption exists for honesty, not accuracy: it isolates the premium and the switching cost so you can see the decision's skeleton without a compounding argument. If you want the full picture, run it twice — once at equal growth, once with stay-growth at your actual merit history — and the truth is somewhere between. The pattern that emerges in every version: over horizons of three years or more, even modest premiums swamp realistic switching costs.
Risk and the non-salary ledger. Risk: probation periods, unknown managers, last-in-first-out exposure in layoffs, and a resume pattern that reads flight-risk in conservative industries — hopping every 18 months closes doors even while it raises pay. Non-salary: title and scope (a hop to a bigger role compounds into the NEXT negotiation), remote flexibility, commute, and trajectory — none of which price into this calculator. And the strongest counterintuitive finding in comp data: the largest raise many people ever get from their CURRENT employer is the counteroffer triggered by having an outside offer — which means the option to hop has value even if you never take it. Run the numbers, then negotiate from knowledge either way.