Vesting schedule & cliff simulator
Enter a grant, a vesting period, and a cliff, and watch the timeline redraw. See the flat stretch where nothing vests, the step when the cliff lands, and every monthly tranche after it — with the dates attached.
What is a 1-year cliff in a vesting schedule?
A 1-year cliff means no equity vests during your first twelve months. Leave before month twelve and you keep nothing. Stay, and 25% of a standard four-year grant vests in a single step on your anniversary, then monthly from there.
- Months 1–11 are a zero-equity period. Nothing accrues that you can keep — a departure at month eleven leaves with no shares, however much work went in.
- Month 12 unlocks everything the cliff was holding, in one step. On a four-year grant that is twelve of forty-eight months, so 25% of the total lands at once.
- From month 13 the schedule goes monthly, releasing 1/48th of the grant each month until the four years are up.
How a standard startup vesting schedule works
The default in startup equity is four years with a one-year cliff, vesting monthly. The grant is divided into 48 equal monthly tranches. None of them are yours until the cliff, at which point the first twelve arrive together; after that one tranche releases per month. Some companies vest quarterly instead of monthly, and some use a six-month cliff for later hires — the chart above handles either, and the shape of the curve is what changes.
The cliff exists to protect the cap table from short tenures. Without it, someone who leaves after five weeks keeps a slice of the company forever, and the founders spend the next decade with a stranger on the register. With it, equity only starts to belong to anyone who has been around long enough to matter.
Tracking monthly vesting manually is a nightmare. Lovie automates your entire team's vesting schedules, updating unvested vs. vested share counts in real-time.
How this calculator works, and what it leaves out
The maths is deliberately the plain version. The grant divides into equal monthly tranches over the vesting period; nothing vests before the cliff month; on the cliff month everything accrued to that point vests at once; from then on one tranche vests per month. Tranches are whole shares, so months are rounded down and the final month is pinned to the full grant — without that, a share count that does not divide evenly quietly loses shares by the end.
What it does not model, because real grants vary and guessing would be worse:
- Acceleration. Single- and double-trigger acceleration on a change of control, which can vest a large block early.
- Back-dated grants. A vesting commencement date earlier than the grant date, common when paperwork lags a start date.
- Quarterly or annual tranches, non-linear schedules, and milestone or performance vesting.
- Leavers, leave, and exercise. Unvested forfeiture, unpaid leave pausing the clock, post-termination exercise windows, early exercise, and 83(b).
- Tax. No withholding, AMT, or ISO/NSO treatment is calculated anywhere on this page.
This tool is for illustration only and is not legal, tax, or financial advice. Your actual entitlement is set by your grant agreement and your company's equity plan — read those, and talk to a qualified adviser before making a decision.
Keep going
Vesting decides when shares become yours; a funding round decides how much each one is worth. The founder equity dilution calculator models what a priced round and a new option pool do to your ownership, and the SAFE note conversion calculator covers what happens to the SAFEs you signed when that round prices. Once options are vested, the ISO vs NSO tax calculator shows what exercising them costs. Unfamiliar term on your grant? The cap table glossary defines it in plain English.
For the mechanics of the election that often accompanies an early grant, see the IRS revenue procedure covering 83(b) elections.