CounterOffer Coach
Considering a counteroffer? Put the offer and your reasons in view.
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The guide
How to respond to a job offer with a counteroffer
Most people receive a job offer, feel a flush of relief, and sign it — letting the one negotiation where they held real standing pass in silence. Countering is a normal, expected part of hiring: recruiters extend offers knowing a counter may come, and a respectful, well-grounded one is simply the next step of the conversation. What makes a counter work is not boldness. It is having a number with a basis, delivered like someone who intends to take the job.
Should I negotiate a job offer or just accept it?
Negotiate, in almost every case — politely, once, with reasons. The company arrived at its number through a process; you are allowed the same. A respectful counter grounded in real evidence reads to an experienced recruiter as ordinary professional behavior, not ingratitude. The exceptions are narrow: an offer that already clears both your researched range and your own target, or an explicit, credible “this is the final number” you are willing to live with. Silence is the one approach with no upside — an offer never improves itself.
What counts as leverage in a salary negotiation?
Leverage is anything that makes your number reasonable to the person who has to approve it: a competing offer, your current compensation, published market data for the role and city, a skill they interviewed hard for, or the cost and delay of restarting their search. Wanting more money is not leverage; neither is needing it. And leverage only exists if it is true — a bluffed competing offer collapses at the first follow-up question and takes your credibility down with it. If your real leverage is thin, aim the negotiation at terms instead of base.
How do I decide what number to ask for?
A number needs a basis, or it reads as a wish. Build it from evidence you can say out loud: published ranges for the title in your market, what peers with your experience earn, a competing offer if you genuinely have one. Then ask modestly above your true target, so an expected meeting-in-the-middle lands where you wanted to be. Name one specific figure rather than a range — a range invites its own bottom — and be ready to give the sentence that justifies it in one breath. If you cannot explain the number, you are not ready to send it.
How do I counter without souring the relationship?
Open with genuine enthusiasm and let the counter live inside it: you want the role, you are excited about the work, and there is one gap to close before you can accept. Frame it as a problem you are solving together — here is where my research puts the role; can we get closer to it? — rather than a demand across a table. Never bluff, never issue an ultimatum you do not mean, and keep every exchange in the tone of someone who expects to be working with these people in three weeks. The negotiation is the first project you do together.
What if they say the offer is final?
Test it gently once — “is there any flexibility?” — and then move to the terms that are often approved through a different, easier process: a signing bonus, an earlier compensation review with criteria in writing, title, start date, remote arrangements, vacation days, or an education budget. Base salary is the hardest lever because it is permanent and presses on internal bands; one-time and structural asks meet less resistance. Winning one or two of these is a real result, not a consolation prize — an early review with teeth can matter more than a modest bump today.
When should I walk away from an offer?
Decide your floor before you counter, while you can still think clearly: the number below which the job does not work for your life, whatever the conversation feels like in the moment. Walk when the final offer sits under that floor and the non-salary terms cannot bridge it, when the negotiation itself turns punitive or dishonest, or when you notice the pull to accept is coming from exhaustion rather than from the offer. A job search costs weeks; the wrong job costs years. Declining respectfully keeps the door open, and recruiters remember candidates who handled it well.
Questions
Why not just use ChatGPT?
You can. But a general chat assistant is built to always hand you an answer — so when it doesn’t have your real title, employer, or a number, it tends to fill the gap with a confident guess, and an invented job or metric is exactly what gets a résumé cut by a recruiter or an ATS. This tool is built to work from what you paste and leave a clearly-marked [placeholder] where it doesn’t know, rather than guess. You also get a free check before you pay, a finished, formatted document (not a chat transcript), and 5 free revisions — one price, no prompt-wrangling.
What do I get for $29?
A defensible counter-offer number with the reasoning behind it, a copy-paste counter-offer email, word-for-word responses to the three likeliest pushbacks, and the non-salary levers to trade for if the base is capped.
Will it invent leverage I don't have?
No. It only uses the offer and the leverage you paste. If your leverage is thin, it tells you honestly and steers you toward non-salary terms instead of fabricating competing offers or market data.
Won't countering make them rescind the offer?
A polite, well-justified counter is an expected, normal part of hiring — not a faux pas. The email is written to hold your number without sounding greedy, and it gives you graceful fallbacks if the base won't move.
Is my offer information stored?
Your text is used to generate your result and kept so you can re-open it from your unlock link. It is never sold or shared for advertising, and never shared with anyone beyond the processors that run the service (see our Privacy Policy).