Use cases
Find your situation, get your number.
The counter you should ask for depends on what is on the table. Every page below takes one situation end to end: what the market pays, what to counter with, what to say, and the email to send.
Negotiating a job offer
The minutes after a written offer are when you have the most leverage you will ever have at that company. Counteroffer turns that moment into a clear plan instead of a panic.
Job offersAsking for a raise
A raise is a pitch you make to your own manager, and winging it costs you. Counteroffer builds the case so you ask with evidence, a number, and the right words.
Asking for a raisePromotion raises
A promotion with a token raise means you took on a bigger job for almost nothing. Counteroffer helps you anchor pay to the new role, not your old salary.
PromotionsResponding to a counteroffer
You resigned, and now they want you to stay for more money. Before you answer, it is worth knowing that the scary statistic everyone quotes at this moment has no source behind it.
Employer counteroffersNew grads and first jobs
Your first offer feels like a gift you should not question, but you can still negotiate it politely. Counteroffer shows new grads how to counter without seeming entitled.
New gradsTech offer negotiation
Tech offers are packages, not paychecks: base, equity, sign-on, and refreshers all move on different rules. Counteroffer values the whole thing and points you to the lever with real room.
Tech offersChanging careers
Switching fields, you worry you have no leverage and take the first offer. Counteroffer helps you benchmark the new role and price your transferable skills fairly.
Career switchRemote pay and relocation
Remote and relocation offers come with pay bands tied to geography, and that is negotiable too. Counteroffer helps you handle location adjustments without underselling.
Remote & relocationSigning bonus negotiation
A signing bonus is the easiest part of an offer for a company to say yes to, because it is one-time money that does not raise the salary band. That makes it the lever most candidates forget to pull.
Signing bonusEquity and RSU offers
Equity is the part of an offer candidates accept most passively, usually because nobody ever told them which parts of it are negotiable. Almost all of it is.
Equity & RSUsSalary negotiation letter
A salary negotiation letter is not a hard sell. It is a short, warm, specific note that thanks them, names a number, and gives one reason it is fair. The candidates who send one earn more than the ones who reply "sounds good."
Negotiation letterUsing a competing offer
A competing offer is the strongest leverage you will ever hold with your current employer, and the easiest to mishandle. Used as a preference to stay, it works. Used as an ultimatum, it can end the relationship you were trying to improve.
Competing offerPhysician contract negotiation
A physician contract is far more than a base salary, and the terms that quietly decide your pay are the ones recruiters call standard. Counteroffer benchmarks the number and drafts the counter.
Physician contractsDental associate contract negotiation
A dental associate contract turns on the terms that never make the recruiting pitch: the production percentage, the guarantee, the non-compete, and who owns the buy-in conversation. Counteroffer benchmarks the number and drafts the counter.
Dentist contractsCRNA contract negotiation
A CRNA offer lives or dies on the terms under the hourly rate: W-2 versus 1099, who pays the malpractice tail, how call is paid, and the non-compete. Counteroffer benchmarks the number and drafts the counter.
CRNA contractsSeverance negotiation
A severance offer is a first offer, not a verdict. Counteroffer benchmarks what your role and tenure should be worth, then drafts the counter you send before the signature deadline.
SeveranceNurse practitioner contracts
An NP offer is more than a base salary. Counteroffer benchmarks the number, flags the terms that quietly decide your real pay, and drafts the counter you send before you sign.
NP contractsPhysician assistant contracts
A PA offer is more than a base number. Counteroffer benchmarks the salary, flags the contract terms that quietly decide your real pay, and drafts the counter you send before you sign.
PA contractsVeterinary associate contracts
A veterinary associate offer is rarely just a salary. It is a base, a production percentage, and a clause that decides whether the base is a floor or a loan. Counteroffer benchmarks the pay and drafts the counter you send before you sign.
Vet contractsSalary expectations
The number you give before you have an offer sets the ceiling for everything after it. Counteroffer builds your market band first, so the figure you type into that box is researched instead of guessed.
Desired salaryTotal compensation
Two offers with the same base salary can be worth twenty thousand dollars apart once the match, the premium share, and the vesting schedule are priced in. Counteroffer values the whole package so you know which offer is actually bigger before you answer either one.
Total compensationPay raise calculator
Work out the new number, what it adds to each paycheck, and the part every other raise calculator skips: whether the increase is any good. The 2026 US average merit raise was 3.1 percent as actually delivered and inflation over the 12 months ending August 2026 was 3.4 percent, so the average raise this year is a small pay cut in real terms.
Raise calculatorCost of living raise
Four different numbers get called the 2026 cost of living raise, and they range from 1.0 percent to 3.8 percent. Picking the wrong one hands your manager the argument. Counteroffer works out which figure applies to you and writes the request around it.
Cost of living raiseSalary requirements
A requirement is a floor. An expectation is a target. Employers ask for the first and negotiate from it as though it were a ceiling. Counteroffer builds the band before you answer, so the number you give is the top of your research instead of the bottom of your nerve.
Salary requirementsCounter offers
A counter offer is one message, sent once, at the only moment in the whole hiring process when the company has committed to wanting you and you have not yet committed to them. Counteroffer works out the number and writes the message.
Counter offersAverage raise percentage
Almost every page on this question quotes a budget projection published the previous autumn. This one uses what US employers reported actually paying out, set against the inflation rate from the same year, so you can see whether your raise moved you forward or just held the line.
Average raiseNon-compete agreements
The non-compete is the one clause in your offer that decides what you are allowed to do after you leave, and it is usually the least negotiated. Counteroffer reads the offer, flags the restrictive covenants, and drafts the email that narrows them before you sign.
Non-competesSeverance pay calculator
A severance number arrives with a deadline attached and almost no context, which is exactly how it stays low. Work out the band your level and tenure actually pay, then counter before the signature window closes.
Severance calculatorLayoff package calculator
A layoff package is a bundle of about eight separate things, and companies quote you the one that is hardest to move. The other seven are where the negotiation actually happens.
Layoff packageSalary expectations answer
The salary expectations question is not really a question. It is the employer asking you to set the ceiling of your own offer, before you know what the budget is.
Salary expectationsExit package negotiation
A separation package arrives as a PDF with a signature line and a date on it, and the date is doing most of the work. Price the package, check whether that deadline is even lawful, and counter the parts that move.
Exit packageRetention bonus negotiation
A retention bonus is the one moment where the company has already decided it needs you and has written down how much. That is the strongest position you will ever negotiate from, and most people sign the first draft.
Retention bonusPTO payout calculator
Unused PTO is the one piece of money on the table at the end of a job that most people never negotiate, because they assume it is automatic. In roughly half the country it is not.
PTO payoutSalary transparency laws
A posted salary range is the one moment an employer states its budget before you have to name a number. Most candidates read it, feel reassured, and then ask for the middle of it.
Pay transparencyFinal paycheck deadlines
The deadline for your last paycheck is set by the state you worked in, and it is often much shorter when you were fired than when you quit. Knowing the date is what turns a polite follow up into a deadline the employer has to meet.
Final paycheckBonus tax calculator
A bonus is the one number in an offer that people negotiate hard and then never convert. The gap between the figure you agreed and the figure that lands is close to 30 percent for most earners, and all of it was predictable before anyone signed anything.
Bonus taxSeverance tax calculator
Severance is the one payment people accept without counting. The offer arrives during the worst week of your working year, the number sounds like a lot, and almost nobody converts it into what will actually be in the account when rent is due, let alone works out what one more week would have been worth.
Severance taxJob offer comparison
Two offers is the strongest position you will ever negotiate from, and most people waste it by comparing base salaries in their head. The offer with the bigger number on the front page is very often the smaller one once tax, the match and the time off are counted.
Compare offersSalary negotiation coach
A good coach is worth real money on a real offer. The problem is that the fees run from $450 to $5,000, almost nobody publishes what the money buys, and the guarantee everyone advertises is a refund promise rather than a promise the employer will pay.
Negotiation coach1099 vs W2 calculator
The hardest number to name in a contract negotiation is the first one. A recruiter asks what your rate is, and the honest answer is that you have no idea, because the salary you are comparing it against was never quoted per hour and quietly included several thousand dollars of things you are about to start paying for yourself.
1099 vs W2 rateExecutive severance package calculator
An executive exit is the one severance negotiation where the company expects a counter. The letter you are handed is an opening position, usually drafted from the lowest defensible reading of your agreement, and the gap between that and what your level normally gets is often several months of pay.
Executive severanceSalary range calculator
Pay transparency put the range in the posting, and then left you alone with it. A 90,000 to 130,000 dollar band is not an invitation to ask for 130,000, and it is not a hint to ask for 110,000 either. Where you should ask depends on how the employer's own compensation rules place people inside that band, and those rules are public.
Salary rangeOTE calculator
OTE is the number on the offer letter that assumes you hit 100 percent of quota. Fewer than half of quota-carrying reps at cloud companies do. A 180,000 dollar OTE is a 180,000 dollar promise only on a team where most people get there, and the recruiter knows which kind of team this is.
OTE calculatorCounteroffer is educational career coaching, not legal, financial, or HR advice. Market ranges are estimates.
One paste, the whole packet.
Build the number, the script, and the email in about two minutes.