Two offers land on the same day. One says “$120,000 + super”. The other says “$120,000 package”. They look identical. They’re about $13,000 apart.
Australian pay is quoted in a dozen confusing ways, and the wording quietly decides how much you actually take home. Once you can read it, you stop comparing apples to oranges — and you stop getting short-changed at offer stage.
The four parts of an Australian pay deal
- Base salary — your fixed cash before super. The number that matters most, because almost everything else is calculated from it.
- Superannuation — 12% on top (FY2026–27). Sometimes added on, sometimes baked into a “package” figure. Always ask which.
- Bonus / variable / OTE — performance-linked. Real money, but treat it as upside, not the number you budget your life around.
- Benefits — extra leave, flexibility, equity, allowances. Genuinely valuable, but they’re not cash and shouldn’t be counted as if they were.
Why base wins every time
Base compounds. Next year’s raise is a percentage of it. Your next job’s offer anchors to it. Most market benchmarks measure it. A dollar on your base keeps paying you for years; a dollar of one-off bonus pays you once. So when you negotiate, settle base first — then talk super, bonus and the rest.
The “package” trap (and how to dodge it)
A “$120k package” often means roughly $107k base plus super. Against a “$120k + super” offer, that’s a meaningfully smaller job for the same headline. Before you compare anything, get every offer into the same units: base, excluding super.
That’s also how to benchmark properly — when you check your market position, use base (ex-super) so you’re comparing like with like, not a padded package number.
Compare in base plus super. Negotiate base first. Treat bonus as upside. That’s the whole game.
