Compensation Planner

Use the Compensation Planner when evaluating a job offer, comparing two compensation packages, or understanding how your total comp evolves over a multi-year vesting period. It handles the complexity of overlapping equity grants, cliff vesting, and stock price uncertainty that spreadsheets struggle with.

• Base Salary: annual gross salary with a configurable annual raise percentage. Salary compounds each year.
• RSU Grants: restricted stock units with vesting schedules. Supports standard 4-year (25/25/25/25), backloaded (5/15/40/40), front-loaded (40/30/20/10), and fully custom per-year percentages. Each grant has its own cliff period, vesting frequency, and grant date.
• Stock Options (ISO/NSO): incentive and non-qualified stock options with strike price, vesting schedule, and user-defined exercise plan. Exercise events are specified at month granularity with validation against vested shares.
• Bonuses: signing (one-time), annual (recurring), and retention bonuses. Can be specified as a fixed dollar amount or a percentage of base salary.
• 401(k) Match: employer match modeled as a percentage of your contribution up to a cap. This is the employer match only, not the elective deferral limit.
• ESPP: Employee Stock Purchase Plan with configurable discount, contribution rate, purchase frequency, and optional lookback provision. Modeled as same-day sale (disqualifying disposition) where the gain is ordinary income.

The results panel lets you toggle between three perspectives on the same compensation data:

• Economic Value: what each component is worth at vest or receipt. RSU value = shares × price at vest. Option value = intrinsic value of vesting shares. 401(k) match = employer dollars. This is the broadest view of total compensation.
• Taxable Income: what hits your tax return each year. RSU vesting = ordinary income. ISO exercises = AMT preference only (not regular taxable). NSO exercises = ordinary income on the spread. 401(k) match is excluded. ESPP gain is ordinary income.
• Realized Cashflow: after-withholding dollars. Per-component bars show estimated payroll withholding. When the tax overlay is enabled, the yearly total and cumulative line update to reflect backend-computed taxes.

When equity grants are present, a stock price panel lets you configure bear, base, and bull annual growth rates. The projection uses compound monthly growth from the current share price. You can toggle between scenarios in the results to see how stock performance affects total comp.

Stock options vest on schedule, but tax events occur at exercise, not vest. For each option grant, you can expand the exercise plan and add events at specific months. The exercise month dropdown shows calendar labels derived from your projection start date (e.g., “Month 13 — Apr 2027”).

• Validation: the tool checks that cumulative exercised shares through any month do not exceed cumulative vested shares at that month. You cannot exercise shares that haven't vested yet.
• Exercise pricing: the stock price at the exercise month comes from the active scenario projection — not a midpoint or year-level average.
• ISO vs NSO: ISO exercises appear as AMT preference items only (no regular taxable income). NSO exercises appear as ordinary income on the spread. The economic view shows intrinsic value at vest for both types.

Four vesting presets are available, plus fully custom:

• Standard 4-year (25/25/25/25): equal vesting each year. Most common at public companies.
• Backloaded 4-year (5/15/40/40): most shares vest in years 3 and 4. Common at Amazon.
• Front-loaded 4-year (40/30/20/10): most shares vest early.
• Custom: specify per-year percentages (must sum to 100%). Add or remove years as needed. Within each year, shares are distributed evenly across vesting-frequency intervals.

Toggle “Show tax estimate” to send your projected income to the backend for a full federal and state tax computation. The overlay uses the same AMT engine as the AMT Calculator, applied per projection year.

• Assumptions: uses 2026 federal and state tax law for all projected years. Assumes the federal standard deduction. Users who itemize may see lower actual tax.
• State tax approximation: for Head of Household and Married Filing Separately, state tax uses Single filing status as an approximation.
• FICA: Social Security (6.2% up to the wage base) and Medicare (1.45%) are computed separately from the AMT engine.

• Annual Compensation Breakdown: stacked bar chart showing each component per year. Values change with the active value lens. When the tax overlay is enabled, a line trace shows total tax per year.
• Cumulative Total Compensation: running sum over the projection period. When equity is present, shows bear, base, and bull scenario lines.
• Equity Vesting & Exercise Timeline: monthly bar chart showing when shares vest, color-coded by grant. Exercise events appear as diamond markers. Cliff dates are marked with dashed vertical lines.