Should I compare job offers on salary or total package?

Neither on its own. Salary ignores super differences and package figures hide that super isn't spendable. Comparing after-tax take-home puts every offer on the same footing, with the super gap shown separately so you can weigh cash today against retirement savings.

How is a sign-on bonus taxed?

It's ordinary income, taxed at your marginal rate in the year you receive it. We add it to year-1 income and tax the total, which is what your annual assessment does. A $10,000 sign-on bonus is typically worth $6,000–$7,000 in hand for a middle-income earner.

What raise percentage should I use?

If the employer has a stated review cycle or band progression, use that. Otherwise Australian wages have grown roughly 3–4% a year recently, so 3% is a sensible floor for a flat role; use more only where there's a concrete promotion path. The point of the field is to test how sensitive the winner is to growth — try both a low and high case.

Does a higher-super offer beat higher salary?

Dollar for dollar, super above the guarantee is usually worth more than salary because it's taxed at 15% going in rather than your marginal rate — but you can't touch it until preservation age. If the offers are close on take-home, the higher-super offer is often the better total deal for anyone not needing the cash now.

Does this include HELP/HECS repayments?

Yes — tick the HELP debt box and each offer's repayment is calculated from its own income, including bonuses. A higher offer can push you into a higher repayment band, which is part of why after-tax gaps are smaller than gross ones.

Job Offer Comparator

Compare job offers by what actually lands in your pocket — not the headline salary

Put two or three offers side by side with their super, sign-on bonus and expected raises. We resolve each to after-tax take-home and project the trajectories, so you can see when a lower offer with faster growth overtakes a higher one.

Your situation

Year

Residency

HELP/HECS debt

Private hospital cover

Project

Base salary ($/yr)

Super (%)

Raise (%/yr)

Sign-on bonus ($)

Other cash ($/yr)

Enter the base salary to see this offer's take-home pay.

Base salary ($/yr)

Super (%)

Raise (%/yr)

Sign-on bonus ($)

Other cash ($/yr)

Enter the base salary to see this offer's take-home pay.

Enter a base salary on at least two offers to compare them — or see it in action first:

How to Use This Calculator

1Enter the base salary from each offer letter (before tax, excluding super)
2Add each offer's super rate if it's above the 12% guarantee, plus any sign-on bonus or recurring cash benefits
3Set an expected annual raise for each role — ask in the interview, or use recent CPI as a floor (the ABS put annual inflation at 3.8% in the 12 months to June 2026)
4Set your shared situation once: financial year, residency, HELP debt and hospital cover
5Read the verdict, then check the trajectory chart to see whether the ranking holds over time

Why compare offers on take-home pay?

Two offers that look $5,000 apart on paper can be much closer after tax — or further apart once super, bonuses and raises are counted. Because income tax is progressive, each extra dollar of a higher offer is taxed at your top marginal rate, so headline gaps always shrink after tax. Meanwhile a higher super rate adds value you can't spend today, and a sign-on bonus is one-off cash that's fully taxed.

This tool resolves every component to a single comparable number — after-tax cash in your pocket — and then projects each offer forward with its own raise assumption. That trajectory view matters: a role that starts $6,000 lower but grows 9% a year overtakes a flat role surprisingly fast, and the crossover year is exactly the kind of thing worth knowing before you accept.

What moves the answer

Marginal tax on the gap: The difference between offers is taxed at your highest rate — a $10,000 gross gap can be worth as little as $5,300 in hand.
Super above the guarantee: An employer paying 15% instead of 12% on $100k adds $3,000 a year to your retirement — invisible in take-home but real money. The guarantee itself stops at the maximum contribution base ($270,830 of earnings), so above that any employer super is a contract term rather than a legal minimum.
Raise trajectory: Compounding raises dominate after a few years. A 3% versus 8% raise assumption changes the 5-year winner more often than a $5k starting gap.
Sign-on bonuses fade: A bonus only boosts year 1 and is taxed at your marginal rate. Don't let a $10k sweetener decide a 5-year question.

Tips

•Ask each employer about their review cycle and typical increase — it turns the raise field from a guess into data
•Check whether bonuses and allowances attract super; we assume super is paid on base salary only
•Weigh the non-cash factors separately: commute, flexibility, learning and job security don't fit in a calculator but often decide the question

Frequently Asked Questions

Official Sources

Rates checked against the ATO — verified 17 August 2026

Estimates only. Not financial or tax advice. Full disclaimer for your rights and our limitations of liability.

Rates and thresholds last updated for the 2026–27 financial year.

About this calculator

This calculator exists to show you the arithmetic. It applies published Australian rates, thresholds and formulas to the numbers you enter and shows the working, so you can check it. That is all it does — it produces a number and describes what the number is. It does not recommend anything and it holds no opinion about any financial product.

What can move this result

It only knows the figures you type in. Offsets, deductions, prior-year losses, other income, your partner's position and anything you have not entered are not in the result, and any of them can move it a long way.
Rates and thresholds change, sometimes mid-year and occasionally with retrospective effect. Each calculator shows the financial year and the verification date it is working from — outside that year the result is wrong rather than approximate.
Assumptions are set to a reasonable default and every non-statutory one can be changed. Defaults are not predictions, and a small change to a growth or inflation assumption compounds into a large change in a long projection.
Where a result reaches two or more years into the future it is shown in today's dollars as well as future dollars, because a future-dollar figure overstates what the money will actually buy.
It is a generic calculator. It is not built around any particular product, it does not compare the market, and it cannot tell you whether a product is suitable for you.

This calculator is not intended to be relied on for the purposes of making a decision in relation to a financial product. Before you make a financial decision, consider obtaining advice from someone who holds an Australian Financial Services Licence. We do not, and we cannot advise you.

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Job Offer Comparator

Compare job offers by what actually lands in your pocket — not the headline salary

About this calculator

What can move this result

It only knows the figures you type in. Offsets, deductions, prior-year losses, other income, your partner's position and anything you have not entered are not in the result, and any of them can move it a long way.
Rates and thresholds change, sometimes mid-year and occasionally with retrospective effect. Each calculator shows the financial year and the verification date it is working from — outside that year the result is wrong rather than approximate.
Assumptions are set to a reasonable default and every non-statutory one can be changed. Defaults are not predictions, and a small change to a growth or inflation assumption compounds into a large change in a long projection.
Where a result reaches two or more years into the future it is shown in today's dollars as well as future dollars, because a future-dollar figure overstates what the money will actually buy.
It is a generic calculator. It is not built around any particular product, it does not compare the market, and it cannot tell you whether a product is suitable for you.