Golden Handcuffs Calculator
Free golden handcuffs calculator. See exactly how much unvested equity (RSUs) you'd forfeit by leaving your job, and whether a new offer's higher salary, sign-on bonus, and fresh grant actually make you whole. Simulates both paths month by month, finds your breakeven date, and tells you how much more to negotiate.
Last reviewed: · Reviewed by the Money Scale editorial team · How we source our data
Power mode. Every input exposed, every assumption sourced, charts and shareables.
Your current job (the handcuffs)
$160,000
$24,000
$120,000
24 mo
8%
$0
The new offer (the escape)
$185,000
$28,000
$40,000
lump
$200,000
4 yr
12 mo
8%
32%
48 mo
Leaving wins clearly
Over 4 years, leaving puts +$178,615 more in your pocket after tax than staying. Leaving breaks even at month 1.
Unvested equity forfeited
$130,144
$62,569 in the next 12 mo
Breakeven point
month 1
ahead from the start
Already made whole
✓
the offer covers the handcuffs
Cumulative after-tax pay: stay vs leave
Where the lines cross is your breakeven. Below the cross, leaving is still paying back the equity you walked away from.
- Stay
- Leave
What the offer puts back (after tax, within horizon)
| Sign-on bonus received | $27,200 |
| New equity vested | $161,033 |
| Forfeited equity (what you give up) | − $88,498 |
| Ongoing pay difference / yr | +$64,384 |
Educational tool, not financial advice. Built for RSUs (the usual form of golden handcuffs): they're taxed as ordinary income at vest, so we apply your marginal rate to all comp. It does not model ISO/NSO option spreads, AMT, ESPP, 83(b) elections, or the liquidity risk of private-company equity — a grant you can't sell isn't cash. Stock-growth assumptions are yours; equity that doesn't vest (or a company that doesn't IPO) is worth zero.
🔓 $130,144 forfeited
Leaving my job forfeits $130,144 in unvested equity ($62,569 in the next year alone).
Save this scenario
Email me my Golden Handcuffs Calculator scenario
Get a one-page PDF of these numbers — your inputs, your results, and a deep link back to tweak them later. Free, no spam.
The Golden Handcuffs Calculator answers the question every equity-comp employee eventually faces: how much am I really giving up by leaving, and does this new offer actually cover it? Most 'offer comparison' tools just stack two total-comp numbers side by side and miss the thing that makes golden handcuffs golden — timing. The equity you forfeit by leaving is front-loaded (you walk away from the next one to three years of vesting now), while everything that makes you whole arrives later: a higher base compounds month by month, a sign-on bonus may be paid over a year, and a fresh equity grant usually has a one-year cliff before any of it vests. So leaving is often underwater for the first 12–24 months and only then pulls ahead. This calculator simulates both paths — staying and leaving — month by month, after tax, and surfaces the three numbers that actually decide it: the total unvested equity you forfeit, the breakeven date when leaving overtakes staying, and the exact additional sign-on or equity you'd need to negotiate if the offer falls short.
Free, private, and no signup
Money Scale is built the opposite way from the big finance sites: the numbers you enter never leave your device, and there's nothing to sign up for.
- Your numbers stay privateEvery calculation runs in your browser. We never receive or store your salary, balances, or inputs.
- Always freeNo paywall, no upsell to a calculator that actually works.
- No login, no emailUse every tool instantly — we never gate results behind a signup.
- Sourced defaultsStarting rates and assumptions cite real data, not made-up numbers.
How this calculator works
- Enter your current job: base salary, target bonus, the value of your unvested equity at today's price, and the number of months until it's fully vested. Add expected refresh grants if you'd get them by staying.
- Set your current company's expected annual stock growth — this grows each forfeited tranche to what it would be worth on its vest date.
- Enter the new offer: base, bonus, the cash sign-on (and whether it's a lump or paid over months), and the new equity grant with its vesting length and cliff.
- Set the new company's expected stock growth. For private or pre-IPO equity, use a lower number (or haircut the grant value) to reflect that you can't sell it and it may never become liquid.
- Set your marginal tax rate (applied to all comp, since RSUs, salary, bonus, and sign-on are all ordinary income) and your decision horizon — how long you realistically plan to stay at the new job.
- Read the verdict: the cumulative after-tax gap at your horizon, the breakeven month where the lines cross, how far behind leaving goes before then, and — if the offer doesn't cover the handcuffs — how much more to ask for.
forfeit = Σ unvested_tranche × (1+g_cur)^(t/12)
stay_cum(t) = Σ (base+bonus)/12 + vesting_stay(t), after tax
leave_cum(t) = Σ (base'+bonus')/12 + signon(t) + vesting_new(t), after tax
breakeven = min t where leave_cum(t) ≥ stay_cum(t)Both paths are summed as monthly after-tax cash flows. Staying credits your salary, bonus, and each unvested equity tranche on its vest date (grown at your company's expected return). Leaving credits the new salary and bonus, the sign-on on its payout schedule, and the new grant on its cliff-then-monthly vesting schedule — but forfeits all current unvested equity. The breakeven is the first month leaving's running total catches staying; the make-whole gap is the shortfall at your horizon, grossed up for tax so it's a number you can negotiate for.
- unvested_tranche
- Each block of current equity that vests after you'd leave
- g_cur, g_new
- Expected annual stock growth for current / new employer
- signon(t)
- Sign-on bonus credited per its payout schedule (lump or spread)
- vesting_new(t)
- New grant value vesting in month t (cliff, then monthly)
- breakeven
- First month cumulative 'leave' pay overtakes 'stay'
Frequently asked questions
Related calculators
See all- CounterofferCounter vs. new offer on comp, commute, and the odds the counter fails.
- Salary to HourlySalary → hourly with honest PTO accounting.
- Tax Return EstimatorEstimate your federal + state refund or balance due (estimator only).
- Net WorthAssets − debts, with US-median comparison by age.
- 401(k) ProjectionProject a 401(k) with employer match and salary growth.