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Cost of Living Comparison
Weigh a job offer in a new city against your prices now: the salary you'd need there to keep the same left over each month, and whether the raise is real.
Your pay
What you spend now, a month
What it would cost there
This calculator has no city data. The prices are yours to find: rental listings for the neighborhoods you’d actually live in, a car insurance quote at the new address, the utility company’s average-bill figures, and a grocery receipt from a store there if you can visit. Your own quotes beat any index.
What this means
The offer is a raise of $10,000 a year on paper. After the new place's prices it is a real cut: about $25 less left over every month, $300 a year.
To keep the same $400 left over each month there, you’d need about $70,400 a year. The offer is $400 short of it, which is a number worth naming if you negotiate. Your costs there come to 114% of what they are now.
These are estimates built only on the numbers you entered, and the answer is only as good as the prices you put in for the new place. Housing usually moves the result most, so check it twice. Moving costs, a gap between paychecks, and benefits that differ between the two jobs are not counted here, and can be worth more than the monthly difference.
Build on it
These are estimates to help you think, not personalized legal, tax, or investment advice, and not a promise of any result.
A bigger salary in a new city is only a raise if it's still bigger after the new city's prices. This calculator compares what you'd have left each month here and there, and works out the salary you'd need in the new place to keep the same leftover you have now.
It has no built-in city data. You supply the prices: what you pay now, and your best estimate of housing, getting around and everything else in the new place, either as dollar amounts or as a percent of what you pay today. Rental listings, an insurance quote at the new address and the local utility's bill estimates will get you closer than any general index.
How to use it
Enter both salaries and what you keep
Your current salary and the offer, both yearly before tax. Then the share of gross pay that actually reaches your account in each place. Your pay stub gives today's; state income tax differs by place, so estimate the new one with the Paycheck calculator.
Enter what you spend now
Monthly housing, getting around (car payment, insurance, gas, transit), and everything else. A month of bank statements is the quickest source.
Price the new place
Enter each line as a dollar amount, or switch to percent of what you pay now if that's how you've been thinking about it (130 means 30% more). Housing usually moves the answer most, so spend your research time there.
Behind the numbers
Raise on paper vs. real raise
The raise on paper is the new salary minus the old one. The real raise is the change in what's left after taxes and living costs. A $10,000 raise can be a real cut if rent goes up by more than the extra take-home.
The salary you'd need
The new place's monthly costs plus the leftover you have today, turned back into a yearly gross salary using the share you'd keep there. If the offer is below it, you'd have less each month. If it's above, you'd have more.
What this leaves out
Moving costs, a gap between paychecks, and benefits that differ between jobs (health premiums, retirement match, commute time) are not counted. Any one of them can be worth more than the monthly difference.
The math behind it
Take-home each month is salary times the share you keep, divided by twelve. Leftover is take-home minus monthly costs. The real raise is leftover there minus leftover here. The salary you'd need there is (costs there + leftover here) times twelve, divided by the share you'd keep there.
Worked example
$60,000 keeping 78% is $3,900 a month. Costs of $3,500 leave $400. An offer of $70,000 keeping 75% is $4,375 a month; costs there of $4,000 leave $375. The $10,000 raise is a real cut of $25 a month. To keep $400 left over there you'd need ($4,000 + $400) × 12 ÷ 0.75 = $70,400.
Price the rent first
Take the difference in monthly housing cost, multiply by twelve, and compare it to the raise after tax. If the rent gap eats most of it, the rest of the costs rarely rescue the offer.
Common questions
How do I compare salaries between two cities?
Compare what's left over, not the salaries. Work out take-home pay in each place, subtract what life costs in each, and compare the two leftovers. This calculator does that and also tells you the salary that would leave you exactly where you are now.
Where do I find prices for a city I don't live in?
Rental listings for the neighborhoods you'd actually live in, an auto insurance quote using the new address, the utility company's posted average bills, and state and local sales tax rates. If you can visit, a grocery receipt there is worth more than any estimate. Your own quotes beat a general index.
Why doesn't this calculator have city data built in?
A built-in index is someone else's average, and it ages from the day it's published. Your rent depends on the neighborhood, the size of the place and the month you move. Prices you look up yourself fit your move better.
Should I use a percent or dollar amounts?
Dollar amounts if you have actual quotes, which is better. Percent of what you pay now if you only have a sense that rent is, say, a third higher. You can switch between the two without losing what you typed.
Go deeper
The calculator gives you a number. The Job & Career Brick teaches you what to do with it, in plain English. And if you’re not sure where to start, the free BrickScore Assessment checks your whole foundation in about 5 minutes.
first the number, then the move