Compare compensation, not salaries
A startup grant, a scale-up RSU package and an enterprise base are three different bets, and their headline totals are not comparable. This prices each one as a distribution — what you get if it fails, if it works, and weighted by the odds you give it — after UK tax and after dilution.
I have taken all three: enterprise at Deutsche Bank, hypergrowth at Revolut, and 0→1 at Vega and Nevis. The defaults below are the shapes those bets tend to have, not quoted offers.
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Startup. Below-market cash for a real slice of the company. Most of the time it is worth nothing; occasionally it is worth more than a decade of salary.
Hypergrowth. Market cash plus equity in something that already works. Dilution is milder, the odds are far better, and the ceiling is lower.
Enterprise. The most cash, the most certainty, and no upside whatsoever. Base plus bonus is the entire story.
- Base + bonus
- £110,000
- Equity
- 0.75% → 0.384%
- If it exits
- £2,270,250
Net over 6 years
£559,929
- Base + bonus
- £172,500
- Equity
- 0.03% → 0.027%
- If it exits
- £1,620,000
Net over 6 years
£1,119,211
- Base + bonus
- £231,250
- Equity
- None
Net over 6 years
£831,792
Scenario
| Offer | If it doesn't work | Weighted | If it works | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Startup | £440,205 | £559,929 | £1,642,838 | £1,202,633 |
| Hypergrowth | £646,981 | £1,119,211 | £1,505,581 | £858,600 |
| Enterprise | £831,792 | £831,792 | £831,792 | £0 |
Shared assumptions
Method. Your grant is diluted by each expected round, then valued at the exit. Options pay only the spread over strike, so a large grant at a high strike can be worth far less than a smaller share award. Only the vested portion at the exit date counts. Equity is realised in one year and taxed as income on top of salary, which is what pushes it into the additional rate — the tax model is the same 2026/27 engine as the take-home calculator.
The weighted column is not a forecast. It is your own probability multiplied by your own exit valuation. Both are guesses, and the honest use of this tool is to notice how hard you have to squint to make a grant beat cash — and how large the spread is either way.
Nominal totals, no discounting. Ignores secondaries, liquidation preferences, option exercise cost and timing, EMI/CSOP tax treatment, and the possibility of leaving before the cliff. Any one of those can matter more than the headline number.
For thinking, not for deciding. Not investment or tax advice.