Two offers, two formats, and no obvious way to line them up. Australian employers quote pay in at least four different ways, which makes an apples-to-apples comparison genuinely hard. Here is the order of operations that makes it easy.
How do you compare two job offers in Australia?
Convert both to base salary excluding superannuation first, then add the value of super, bonus at its actual payout rate, leave above the statutory minimum, and any equity. Compare after-tax cash and total value separately — they can point to different offers.
Step one: get both into the same units
This is where most of the mistakes happen, and it is worth real money. “$130,000 package” and “$130,000 plus super” differ by about $13,900 of base salary.
| How it is quoted | Base salary | Super | Total cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| $130,000 plus super | $130,000 | $15,600 | $145,600 |
| $130,000 package | $116,071 | $13,929 | $130,000 |
| Difference | $13,929 | $15,600 |
Always ask “is that base or package?” before anything else. The full breakdown of Australian pay formats is in base, package and OTE.
Step two: price the rest honestly
- Bonus. Ask what the bonus actually paid last year, not what the target is. Then count it at that rate, or discount it further if it depends on company performance you cannot influence.
- Leave above the minimum. Four weeks is the statutory floor. A fifth week is worth roughly 2% of base — real, but not the deciding factor people treat it as.
- Equity. In a listed company, value it at the current price with a discount for vesting risk. In a private company, treat it as a lottery ticket you did not pay for, and never as salary.
- Commute and flexibility. Two days a week saved is roughly 100 hours a year. At a $120,000 salary that is about $6,000 of your time, and it is tax-free.
- Super above 12%. Some employers, especially in the public sector and universities, pay well above the guarantee. It is deferred but it is real money.
Step three: check both against the market
A comparison between two offers tells you which is better. It does not tell you whether either is any good. Both could be below market — which happens more often than people expect, because a candidate holding two offers usually stops negotiating. Check both against Australian market data before you accept either; if both come back below the median for the role, you have leverage with each of them.
When the money is close
If the two are within about 5%, stop optimising the salary — it will be a rounding error in three years. These questions decide it instead:
- Who would you be learning from? The single largest determinant of what you earn in five years is what you can do in five years.
- Is the role growing or maintaining? Growing teams create titles and bands. Stable ones ration them.
- How is pay reviewed here? A defined band and an annual cycle beats a vague promise every time.
- Would you be the most senior person doing your job? Great for autonomy, poor for development, and it usually caps your progression at that employer.
Do not forget you can still negotiate
Holding two offers is the strongest position you will ever be in, and the most commonly wasted one. You do not need to play them off aggressively — a single line is usually enough: “I have another offer I am weighing up, and I would like to accept yours. Is there room to move the base to $X?” The mechanics are in how to counter a job offer and the wording in the negotiation email templates.
Get both offers into base excluding super before you compare anything. Half of all “close” offers are not close at all.
Superannuation guarantee rate per the ATO. Leave entitlements per the Fair Work Ombudsman. General information, not financial advice.
