How to Compare Job Offers Using Salary and Cost of Living
Compare two job offers fairly by adjusting for take-home pay and cost of living. Step-by-step guide.
You’ve got two job offers. One pays $95,000 in San Francisco; the other $78,000 in Austin. The bigger number isn’t automatically the better deal. Taxes differ by state, and cost of living can turn a “smaller” salary into more real spending power. This guide walks through a simple way to compare offers so you’re looking at what actually matters: money in your pocket and what it buys.
Step 1: Turn gross into net
Gross salary is what the employer quotes. Net is what hits your account after tax and (where relevant) social contributions. A $95k offer in California and a $78k offer in Texas don’t have the same take-home—California has state income tax; Texas doesn’t. So the first step is to get net pay for each offer. Use our Net Salary Calculator for each: choose the right country and region (e.g. California vs Texas), enter the gross, and you’ll see net annual and net monthly for both. That puts you on the same playing field in terms of “money I actually get.”
Step 2: Adjust for where you’ll live
Same net pay in two different cities doesn’t mean the same lifestyle. Rent, food, and transport in San Francisco eat a lot more than in Austin. So you need to ask: “If I took the Austin job, how much would I need to earn in SF to have the same purchasing power?” (or the other way around). Our Job Offer Compare tool does exactly that: you enter both offers (city + gross salary), and it shows net for each and then converts one into the other city’s equivalent. So you get one clear line: “Offer A is worth more in real terms” or “Offer B is worth more.” That’s the number that should drive the financial part of your decision.
Step 3: Layer in benefits and the rest
Salary and cost of living are the foundation. Then add benefits (health, 401(k), PTO), equity or bonus, growth potential, and how much you care about the location. The numbers from our Salary Calculator and Job Offer Compare give you a fair financial baseline; you decide what else tips the scale. For city-to-city cost-of-living detail without two full offers, try the Cost of Living Calculator or read New York vs London and Berlin vs Munich for examples of how we think about equivalent salaries.
When both offers are in the same country
The process is the same: get net for each (state or city can still change tax in the US, e.g. NYC vs Florida), then adjust for cost of living if the cities differ. Job Offer Compare works for any of our supported cities in the US, UK, and Germany—so you can compare London vs Berlin, or New York vs Chicago, just as easily as San Francisco vs Austin.
A quick reminder
All of this is for planning—not tax or financial advice. Use the tools to get a clear picture of purchasing power; for big decisions, consider talking to a financial or tax professional too.