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What is your startup equity offer actually worth?

An offer letter gives you a number of options and rarely tells you what fraction of the company that is. Put in the grant and the share count, set your own exit assumptions, and see the range — including the case where it comes to nothing.

These are hypothetical illustrations, not forecasts. The three exit valuations below are assumptions you set, and you should change them. Nothing here predicts or guarantees what this company will be worth — most startups never reach an exit at all, and equity that looks valuable on paper is frequently worth nothing. Not financial, tax, or legal advice.

Options or shares offeredStrike price ($)Set 0 for RSUs, or if the offer did not say.Total shares outstandingFully diluted. Ask for this number — you cannot value an offer without it.Current company valuation ($)Optional. Changing it reseeds the exit scenarios below.

Future dilution assumptionDilution per round (%)Rounds before exit

Each round compounds: 20% across 2 rounds leaves 64.0% of your original stake.

Exit valuations — your assumptionsPessimistic exit ($)Realistic exit ($)Optimistic exit ($)

Seeded at 0×, 3× and 10× today's valuation as a starting point. The pessimistic case defaults to zero on purpose.

Your stake today0.2%

After assumed dilution0.128%

Cost to exercise everything$20,000

Price per share today$2.00

Net payout by scenario — after exercise cost

Pessimisticif it exits at $0-$20,000net of exercise cost

Gross: $0
Exercise cost: $20,000
Return on cost: 0.00×

Exercising costs more than the shares fetch

Realisticif it exits at $60,000,000$56,800net of exercise cost

Gross: $76,800
Exercise cost: $20,000
Return on cost: 3.84×

Optimisticif it exits at $200,000,000$236,000net of exercise cost

Gross: $256,000
Exercise cost: $20,000
Return on cost: 12.80×

Shares offered 20,000 of 10,000,000 outstanding. Figures ignore liquidation preference, vesting, expiry and tax — see the notes below the calculator.

What percentage of equity is normal for an early employee?

There is no single normal. Early employees are usually granted a fraction of a percent, and the number falls sharply as headcount and valuation rise. Seniority matters more than hire order, and the total employee pool is typically ten to twenty percent.

Among the first ten hires, before or around a seed round, grants commonly land somewhere between roughly half a percent and a couple of percent — with the earliest and most senior hires at the top of that spread and everyone else well below it.
Once a company is past Series A and into the tens of employees, grants are usually reported in tenths of a percent rather than whole ones, because the same option pool is being shared across a much larger team at a much higher valuation.
By employee fifty and beyond, ordinary grants are commonly in the hundredths of a percent, and the meaningful variable becomes seniority and the dollar value of the grant rather than the headline percentage.

Those are the ranges published equity handbooks commonly report, not figures from a survey of our own. For actual benchmark data by role and stage, Index Ventures' Rewarding Talent handbook and the Holloway Guide to Equity Compensation are the two references worth reading before you negotiate. Grants vary enormously by role, location, stage and how the conversation goes.

The four questions to ask before you accept

How many shares are outstanding, fully diluted? Without it, a grant of 20,000 options is a number with no meaning. If a company will not tell you, that is itself information.
What is the strike price, and the last valuation? Together they tell you whether the grant is already above water and what exercising will cost you in cash.
How much preferred money is ahead of me? Liquidation preference is paid before common stock. In a modest exit, investors can be made whole while employee options return nothing — this calculator does not model that, and it is the most common reason a payout comes in below expectation.
What is the exercise window if I leave?Many plans give 90 days, after which vested options expire. A grant you cannot afford to exercise in time is worth zero regardless of the company's success.

Understanding your equity is the first step. When you're ready to start your own company, Lovie helps you build a cap table that's clear for your team from day one.

What this calculator leaves out

Liquidation preference. Preferred shareholders are paid first. This tool divides the exit value pro-rata, which overstates the common-stock outcome in small and mid-size exits.
Vesting and cliffs. Figures assume the whole grant is vested. Use the vesting schedule simulator to see when it actually would be.
Tax. No income, AMT or capital gains treatment. The ISO vs NSO tax calculator covers what exercising and selling costs.
Option-pool refreshes and anti-dilution. The dilution input is a flat assumption; real rounds also top up the pool and can trigger protective provisions — the anti-dilution simulator shows what those do in a down round.
Secondary sales, expiry, and the odds of any exit at all. Most startups do not reach one.

Where this fits

If you are on the other side of this conversation — writing the offers rather than reading them — our formation glossary entry on stock options and the entry on authorized shares cover the mechanics from the company's side, and the guide to choosing a C-Corp or LLC for fundraising explains the structure that makes employee option grants possible in the first place.

The strike price on your grant comes from the company's 409A valuation — the 409A valuation timing checklist covers when that has to be refreshed. Terms in your offer letter you do not recognise are defined in the cap table glossary.