Should you counter, or take the offer on the table?
There is a real offer in front of you and a number in your head that is better. The question is not whether you deserve more, it is whether asking is worth the chance the other side stops answering your messages. This tree turns that into one probability you can actually judge: how likely they are to walk.
Personal Finance Intermediate Decision Tree Pro engine
After you install, this is the model to open.
Counter or Accept
- In your spreadsheet, click the Sortia icon in the strip of icons down the right-hand edge. No strip? Click the arrow at the bottom-right to open it. You can also use Extensions, then Sortia, then Open Sortia.
- Click Start from a template and put that name in the search box.
- Pick the card with that name and click Load this template. It arrives on a new tab with real numbers already in it.
This one runs on a Pro engine, and every free install includes five full-quality runs on your own numbers, shared across all five Pro engines rather than five for each. After that, Pro is $199/year.
The answer
Sortia rolls every branch back to expected value and picks the move at each decision point.
- Expected value of countering
- $19,930 vs $19,000 if you accept now
- Worth of one push
- +$930 4.9% of the offer in hand
- Break-even walk-away risk
- 56.7% above this, take the offer
- Pushing a second time
- $19,385 $615 worse than the $20,000 offered
Countering is worth $19,930 against $19,000 for accepting, so the first push pays. It stays the better move until your chance of blowing up the deal passes 56.7%, which is a far higher bar than most people's nerves suggest. The second push is where it turns: holding out for $20,600 after they come back at $20,000 is worth only $19,385, so the tree takes the $20,000 and stops. The price of pushing once is a 20% chance you end $1,100 below the offer you already had.
The model
The default is a private vehicle sale, but the shape fits any offer you are holding: a raise, a client quote, a house.
| Offer on the table | $19,000 |
| Your counter | $21,000 |
| They accept your counter | 35% |
| They meet you at $20,000 | 45% |
| They walk away | 20% |
| Fallback if they walk (relist) | $18,200 |
| Restart cost once they are gone | $300 |
| Optional second push | $20,600 at 55% |
Once it is in your sheet
- The model arrives with real numbers in it and runs as it stands, so you can press the button first and understand it second.
- Change the numbers to yours. The sheet marks which cells are inputs and which hold formulas, and most labels carry a note explaining the row.
- Press the run button at the bottom of the panel. It is labeled for the tool you are in, and the result lands on its own tab, with a written reading of it beside the figures.
Never used Google Sheets? Start here goes the whole way, in seven steps, and assumes nothing.
Next question
- Does selling when stocks look expensive beat holding?Market Timing vs Buy and Hold
- Claim at 62, 67 or wait until 70?When Should You Take Social Security?
- Pay off the mortgage early, or invest the money?
- Will the college fund actually cover four years?Will the College Fund Cover Four Years?
- Is an electric car actually cheaper to own?
- Is the franchise worth giving up a steady salary?Franchise, Independent, or Keep the Job?
Every model like this one, and the method behind them: Decision trees.