ESOP Calculator

Free Coming soon

Model employee equity grants, dilution, vesting schedules, and exit-scenario payouts. For founders designing equity, and operators evaluating offers.

What it does

The ESOP Calculator models employee equity from the founder’s side and the employee’s side at once. Inputs: your cap table, options pool, dilution roadmap, vesting schedule. Outputs: what a grant is worth today, what it’s worth at exit at multiple valuations, what dilution does to it across rounds, and what the tax treatment looks like in the relevant jurisdiction.

Who it’s for

Founders designing equity grants. Operators evaluating offers. Heads of People setting equity bands. Anyone who has tried to answer “what’s this worth?” and realized the answer depends on six assumptions nobody wrote down.

How to use it

Enter your cap table, options pool size, planned dilution across future rounds, exit valuation range, and the grant you want to model. The calculator shows the grant’s value at each stage, the dilution impact, the vesting outcome at common departure points, and the tax-adjusted take-home at exit.

Why this exists

Every offer letter has a number on it that means something different to the person signing it than to the person writing it. Most equity conversations happen across that gap. This calculator closes it: founders see what they’re actually granting, operators see what they’re actually getting.

Related questions

How do you calculate what an equity grant is worth?
Start with your number of shares (or options) divided by the fully-diluted share count to get your ownership percentage, then multiply by a realistic company valuation — and adjust for what you'd actually net after the strike price, taxes, and future dilution. A headline "X shares" means little without the denominator and a credible valuation.
What is dilution, and how does it affect my equity?
Dilution is the drop in your ownership percentage when the company issues new shares — typically in a fundraise or to expand the option pool. Your share count stays the same, but the total grows, so your slice shrinks. It isn't automatically bad: a smaller percentage of a much larger company can be worth far more — but you should model it, not ignore it.
How do vesting schedules work?
Vesting is the schedule on which you earn your granted equity. The most common is four years with a one-year cliff: you vest nothing until your first anniversary (then 25% at once), and the rest vests monthly or quarterly over the remaining three years. Leave before the cliff and you keep nothing; leave after and you keep what's vested.
How do I evaluate a startup equity offer?
Look past the share count to your fully-diluted ownership percentage, a realistic (not aspirational) valuation, the strike price on options, the vesting schedule, and the likely dilution ahead. Then weigh the equity's expected value against the cash you're giving up — so the number is grounded, not a lottery ticket.