What is this comp package really worth?
Salary, a performance bonus, a retention bonus and private-company equity, and nobody can tell you the year the exit lands. Run the whole package through the uncertainty and read it as a range, total and per year.
Work Intermediate Monte Carlo Pro engine
After you install, this is the model to open.
What Is This Comp Package Really Worth?
- 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
- Total through exit
- $1.96M median; P10 $894K, P90 $2.76M
- Per year
- $460K the number to compare offers with
- What drives it
- the exit year 0.89 on the tornado, ahead of the multiple at 0.42
- If the exit comes early
- $1.10M median total at 60/30/10 odds; per-year holds at $467K
The sheet at its own most-likely values says this package is worth about 1,817,000 dollars through a four-year exit. Run it and the honest answer is a spread: median 1,956,000, with a one-in-ten downside near 894,000 and a one-in-ten upside past 2,757,000. The surprise is the tornado: the exit YEAR drives the answer at 0.89, well ahead of the valuation multiple at 0.42, and the bonus range barely registers at 0.05, because the year gates salary, retention, vesting and compounding all at once, so argue about timing before arguing about payout.
For the second run, make the exit odds early-heavy by retyping the probabilities as 0.6, 0.3, 0.1: the median total falls to about 1,103,000 while the average-per-year output barely moves from about 460,000 to 467,000, which is the number to quote when comparing this package against another offer. What the model cannot tell you: everything here is pre-tax, the equity is entered at grant value rather than option spread, and dilution is not modeled separately, so fold expected dilution into the exit multiple and, for options, replace the grant value with what the shares would clear above your strike.
The model
It arrives on a tab called Template: Comp Package Value:
| Base salary this year ($/yr) | 220000 |
| Salary growth per year | 0.04 |
| Target bonus (share of salary) | 0.2 |
| Bonus payout multiplier (this cycle) | 1 |
| Retention bonus per quarter ($) | 6000 |
| Equity grant at today's valuation ($) | 300000 |
| Vesting period (years) | 4 |
| Exit valuation multiple vs today | 2 |
| Years until exit | 4 |
| Salary paid through exit ($) | 934,222.1 |
| Performance bonus through exit ($) | 186,844.4 |
| Retention bonus through exit ($) | 96,000 |
| Equity vested share at exit | 1 |
plus 3 more rows on the sheet.
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
- What is the engagement worth once scope grows?Take the Engagement or Pass?
- Which day can you promise and still be right nine times in ten?What deadline gives 90% odds of finishing?
- Which bid is low enough to win and high enough to pay for the job?What bid wins with 70% odds and still makes money?
- Which job offer really pays more?Two Job Offers: Price the Tradeoffs
- Whose calendar is the real critical path?Is Anyone Double-Booked?
- Can the panel agree on an order, if not on scores?Rank the Candidates
Every model like this one, and the method behind them: Monte Carlo simulation.