Compare up to 3 job offers by what you'd actually take home, after tax and your real expenses
When you're weighing two or three job offers, the natural instinct is to compare the CTC figures on the offer letters. But CTC is not what lands in your bank account, and two offers with very different CTCs can end up leaving you with a similar, or even reversed, amount once you account for tax, PF, and where you'd actually be living.
A ₹6 LPA offer in a metro city can lose to a ₹4.8 LPA offer in a tier-2 city once rent and daily expenses are subtracted. Neither offer letter tells you that. This tool runs both offers through the same salary and tax math this site already uses for the CTC to Take-Home Calculator, then subtracts your real monthly expenses, so the comparison reflects what actually happens to your money, not just what's printed on paper.
A note on joining bonuses: a one-time bonus makes Year 1 look better than it really is long-term. This tool checks both Year 1 and the steady state from Year 2 onward, and tells you explicitly if the two disagree on which offer is actually better.
The anchor figure your CTC is built around. Everything else, HRA, PF, gratuity, is calculated as a percentage of Basic, which is why this tool lets you set Basic % separately for each offer, since not every company structures salaries the same way.
House Rent Allowance, calculated as a percentage of Basic. It's part of your gross salary regardless of whether you actually pay rent.
Whatever remains of your gross salary after Basic and HRA are assigned. Not a fixed percentage, it's the leftover.
Your CTC minus the employer's own contributions (Employer PF and Gratuity), which are included in your CTC on paper but never actually reach your payroll.
Employee PF is deducted from your salary and goes into your own retirement account, it's still your money. Employer PF and Gratuity are the company's contributions, included in your CTC to make the number look larger, but not paid out monthly.
Every offer's tax is calculated using the new tax regime rules for FY 2025-26, the default regime unless you specifically opt for the old one. That includes the ₹75,000 standard deduction, the Section 87A rebate (which brings tax to ₹0 if taxable income is ₹12L or less), marginal relief just above that line, and a 4% cess on whatever tax remains. The old regime, with its own rules around HRA exemption and other deductions, is not covered by this tool.
Entered as a single number covering food, rent, lifestyle and everything else you spend monthly. Selecting a city fills in a rough starting estimate, but you should override it with your real number, you know your own spending better than a city average can.
Take-home after tax, minus your monthly expenses. This is the number that actually decides which offer is better, not the CTC, not even the take-home, but what's left once your real costs are subtracted.
Just want one offer's full breakdown? This tool needs at least 2 offers to run a comparison. For a single offer, use the CTC to Take-Home Calculator instead.