Job Offer Decision Calculator
Compare two offers on money, commuting time and remote work, and score each one.
Two offers rarely differ only in salary. One pays more and takes two hours of your day; the other pays less and lets you work from home three days a week. Money and time are both real, and they can be put on one scale.
Enter both offers with their salary, commute, remote days and leave, and this calculator gives a financial score and a lifestyle score for each, then names the trade.
At a glance
- What you enter
- Offer A: gross salary, Offer A: minutes each way, Offer A: office days per week, Offer A: paid leave days, Offer B: gross salary, Offer B: minutes each way, Offer B: office days per week, Offer B: paid leave days, Commuting cost per office day, What an hour of your time is worth, Value of a remote day to you, Working weeks per year
- What you get
- Offer A financial value, Offer B financial value, Difference in financial value, Offer A financial score, Offer B financial score, Difference in lifestyle value, Offer A advantage including time
- Formula shown
- Yes - every step, right below your results.
- Cost and privacy
- Free, no account needed, and nothing you type is stored.
See worked examples ↓ Read the FAQ ↓ Share this calculator ↓
Results are estimates for general information only - always verify with a professional or official source before acting on them.
How to use the Job Offer Decision Calculator
- 1 Enter Offer A: gross salary
- 2 Enter Offer A: minutes each way (minutes)
- 3 Enter Offer A: office days per week (days)
- 4 Enter Offer A: paid leave days (days)
- 5 Enter Offer B: gross salary
- 6 Enter Offer B: minutes each way (minutes)
- 7 Enter Offer B: office days per week (days)
- 8 Enter Offer B: paid leave days (days)
- 9 Enter Commuting cost per office day
- 10 Enter What an hour of your time is worth
- 11 Enter Value of a remote day to you - What you would pay per week for one day at home. Enter 0 if it is worth nothing to you.
- 12 Enter Working weeks per year (weeks)
- 13 Press Calculate. You get Offer A financial value, Offer B financial value, Difference in financial value, Offer A financial score, Offer B financial score, Difference in lifestyle value, Offer A advantage including time, and every intermediate step stays visible under “How is this calculated?”
- 14 Change one number at a time to see what moves the result - that is usually the most useful thing a calculator can tell you.
Worked examples
Real numbers run through this calculator. Open any example to load it into the form above and change it.
A $68,000 job with a long commute against $62,000 mostly at home
Four office days at 55 minutes each way against two days at 15 minutes, with five extra leave days on the lower offer.
You enter
- Offer A: gross salary
- $68,000.00
- Offer A: minutes each way
- 55 minutes
- Offer A: office days per week
- 4 days
- Offer A: paid leave days
- 20 days
- Offer B: gross salary
- $62,000.00
- Offer B: minutes each way
- 15 minutes
- Offer B: office days per week
- 2 days
- Offer B: paid leave days
- 25 days
- Commuting cost per office day
- $14.00
- What an hour of your time is worth
- $22.00
- Value of a remote day to you
- $30.00
- Working weeks per year
- 46 weeks
You get
- Offer A financial value
- $70,654.77
- Offer B financial value
- $66,673.54
- Difference in financial value
- $3,981.23
- Offer A financial score
- 100.00 out of 100
- Offer B financial score
- 94.37 out of 100
- Difference in lifestyle value
- $9,169.33
- Offer A advantage including time
- -$5,188.10
Offer A is worth $70,654.77 in money and offer B $66,673.54, so A pays $3,981.23 more once the commuting cost and the extra leave are counted, and the financial scores are 100.00 against 94.37. On time, A takes 337.33 hours of commuting a year against 46.00 for B, and valuing those hours at $22 with the remote days at $30 gives B a lifestyle advantage of $9,169.33. Putting money and time on one scale, B is ahead by $5,188.10 a year.
A $75,000 job against $71,000 with a longer journey
Three office days at 20 minutes against five at 45 minutes, with four extra leave days on the lower offer.
You enter
- Offer A: gross salary
- $75,000.00
- Offer A: minutes each way
- 20 minutes
- Offer A: office days per week
- 3 days
- Offer A: paid leave days
- 22 days
- Offer B: gross salary
- $71,000.00
- Offer B: minutes each way
- 45 minutes
- Offer B: office days per week
- 5 days
- Offer B: paid leave days
- 18 days
- Commuting cost per office day
- $9.00
- What an hour of your time is worth
- $25.00
- Value of a remote day to you
- $15.00
- Working weeks per year
- 48 weeks
You get
- Offer A financial value
- $80,050.15
- Offer B financial value
- $73,755.38
- Difference in financial value
- $6,294.77
- Offer A financial score
- 100.00 out of 100
- Offer B financial score
- 92.14 out of 100
- Difference in lifestyle value
- $8,040.00
- Offer A advantage including time
- $14,334.77
Offer A is worth $80,050.15 and offer B $73,755.38, a lead of $6,294.77 on money, with financial scores of 100.00 against 92.14. A also takes 96.00 commuting hours a year against 360.00 for B, and its lifestyle value is $480.00 against minus $7,560.00. Nothing here rescues offer B: including the value of time, A is ahead by $14,334.77 a year, so the lower salary is not buying a better week.
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Frequently asked questions
How is the financial value of each offer worked out?
It is the salary, minus the commuting cost across the office days in the year, plus the value of the paid leave. Leave is valued at the daily rate implied by the salary, which is the salary divided by 260 working days, so five extra days on a $60,000 salary is worth about $1,154.
Gross salary is used throughout, so tax is not deducted. Two offers with different salaries can end up much closer after tax, and an offer in a different country or state has to be compared on take-home pay rather than on the figures this page produces.
What rate should I use for an hour of my time?
Whatever an hour of your own time is worth to you, which is not the same as your hourly pay. Using your salary rate values commuting at the same price as working, which is usually too high; using a very low rate makes every commute look acceptable. The default is a starting point, not a recommendation.
The practical way to choose is to ask what you would pay to avoid an hour of that journey. Then change the rate and watch how the lifestyle figures move, because a decision that flips when the rate changes is one you have not really made yet.
Why are the scores out of 100 rather than in money?
Both scores are expressed against the better offer, so the better one always reads 100 and the other is a proportion of it. That avoids inventing a scale on which 73 would have no meaning, and it makes the size of the gap clear at a glance.
A score of 94 means the second offer is worth 94% of the first on money alone, before time and flexibility are counted at all. Read the score together with the lifestyle difference and the advantage including time, not on its own.
How are remote days valued?
The value you enter for a remote day is multiplied by the days a week you are not in the office and by the working weeks in the year. A remote day worth $30 across three days a week for 46 weeks is $4,140 of lifestyle value, against which the commuting hours are charged at your hourly rate.
Because the same daily figure is applied to every non-office day, the calculation assumes each one is worth the same to you. Enter 0 if working from home has no value for you, and the comparison becomes purely about commuting time and cost.