Is My Promotion Worth It? Break-Even Calculator
Calculate if a promotion is actually worth the extra hours. Find your break-even salary and see if your effective hourly rate goes up or down.
Assumes a 40-hour baseline and 52 weeks. Additional responsibility hours are your estimate. Gross salary minus cash costs is a comparison measure, not take-home pay.
When to use this tool:
- Evaluate a promotion offer
- Negotiate raise amounts
- Assess career progression value
How it's Calculated
- Calculates hourly rate before and after adjusting for total hours and new costs.
- Break-even Salary = The salary required to maintain your previous hourly rate with the new workload.
Key Assumptions
Defaults are example inputs. See methodology and corrections for how to check results, or report an issue.
- Base week is 40 hours unless adjusted by extra hours.
- Mental load hours account for time spent thinking about work outside of direct hours.
Actionable Insights
- A 10% raise with a 15% increase in total time spent (including mental load) is effectively a pay cut per hour.
- The 'Break-even' salary is often much higher than people expect when responsibilities scale.
Frequently Asked Questions
It's the time you spend stressed about work, answering emails on weekends, or 'off-the-clock' thinking that a promotion often demands.
It's the minimum salary you should accept to ensure your hourly rate doesn't drop due to the increased workload.
Consider how much of your evening or weekend is spent 'monitoring' work or managing people effectively.
No. It compares gross salaries and entered commute costs. An after-tax comparison needs your own tax estimates; a higher marginal bracket does not tax every dollar at that rate.
Only if the long-term career growth or resume benefit outweighs the immediate loss of time and hourly value.
If the promotion requires more days in office or a different location, enter the annual cost change in the dedicated field.
Worked example: a promotion with seven additional hours
At $85,000 and 40 hours for 52 weeks, reference pay is $40.87/hour. A $95,000 promotion requiring seven additional weekly hours and $500 more annual commuting costs gives $94,500 / 2,444 = $38.67/hour. Maintaining the reference rate requires $100,375 gross salary under this model.
Keep actual additional work and your personal estimate of responsibility time distinct. Do not enter the same hours in both fields. Benefits, career development and job security require separate consideration.
Compare benefits and compare paid leave before interpreting the hourly result.