Tools · Total Comp Comparison
What does each offer actually pay?
Stack up to four offers side-by-side. Add base salary, signing bonus, year-end bonus, clerkship premium (if applicable), and the market each is in. We compute total cash, COL-adjusted purchasing power, and post-tax take-home for every offer at once.
Offer 1
Offer 2
Year-end bonus payout
Stress-test the comparison: what changes if the bonus pays below scale, at scale, or above? Slider applies to every offer simultaneously.
100%
Side-by-side
| Metric | Offer 1 | Offer 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Market | New York | New York |
| Total cash (base + signing + bonus + clerkship) | $266,000 | $266,000 |
| COL-adjusted (national-avg purchasing power) | $142,246 | $142,246 |
| Post-tax take-home (approx.) | $167,133 | $167,133 |
| State + city tax rate | 11.7% | 11.7% |
What this tool is good at
- Apples-to-apples comparison. Most offer letters mix base, signing, and bonus differently. We normalize them.
- Clerkship-bonus math. Some firms credit a one-year clerkship as a $75-100k premium on top of starting salary. Toggle it per offer.
- "Higher base, lower bonus" tradeoffs. A $260k base + 15% bonus often pays less than a $245k base + 20% bonus. The math is here.
What this tool is NOT
- A predictor of bonus payout.We use the firm's published bonus structure as the input. Actual bonuses vary year-to-year and by class.
- A loan-repayment calculator. Federal loan IDR + PSLF math is its own tool (coming).
- A retirement-savings projector. Total comp tells you what you make. What you keep is up to you.
Methodology
Bonus structures use the published Cravath/Davis Polk class-year bonus scale. Signing bonuses are user-input. Clerkship premium defaults to $75k (a common practice) but is editable per offer. Cost-of-living indices and tax rates come from the same sources as the Cost-of-Living Adjuster; full citations are on the methodology page.