Salary vs Benefits

Pricing retirement match in real dollars

A 6% match on a $110,000 salary is $6,600/year in guaranteed employer money. An offer with no match needs roughly that much more in base salary just to break even on this one line — before comparing anything else.

Health premiums are a real, recurring cost difference

A $250/month difference in your share of health premiums is $3,000/year — a number worth subtracting from whichever offer costs you more, the same way you'd subtract a recurring bill.

PTO isn't extra income, so don't price it like salary

A paid time off day doesn't add to your income — it's time away from work you're already being paid for. Treating extra PTO days as if they were worth your daily salary rate double-counts value that's already reflected in your base pay. PTO is a genuine quality-of-life factor, worth weighing on its own terms, just not as a dollar figure stacked onto compensation.

The honest way to compare

Add guaranteed employer contributions (retirement match, HSA contribution) to your base pay, subtract your share of recurring costs (health premiums), and you get a real 'effective economic value' figure that's actually comparable across offers — closer to the truth than base salary alone, and more honest than pretending PTO or vague 'benefits' have a specific dollar value they don't.

Price out retirement match, health premiums, and PTO against your actual offers.