Most people take the first number. Not because they’re timid - because they can’t see the range.
The offer arrives and you have about a day to decide whether it’s good, with nothing to compare it to. That isn’t a confidence problem, it’s an information problem: you are being asked to price yourself against a market you have never been shown. So LandEarly shows you the market first - the band this role actually posted, with your number on it.
Built on the same live posting index behind LandEarly Salaries.
The band
From real postings
Your leverage
From your own history
The counter
Written, ready to send
$181k
That offer
$216k
Market median
$35k
Under the midpoint
539 priced listings, rolling 90-day window. Midpoints of posted ranges only - the same numbers the brief is handed.
One number means nothing. The band around it means everything.
An offer arrives as a single figure with nothing beside it. The brief’s first job is to put it back where it came from - the pay this role actually posted over the last ninety days, from listings that named a number. That band is the whole argument: it turns “I think I’m worth more” into “here is where this sits, and here is the source.”
Offer check - Software EngineerRolling 90-day window · posted pay only
Live posting data$139k
10th
$216k
Median
$363k
90th
$181k
Their offer
$216k
Market median
25th
Percentile in the band
539
Priced listings behind it
This offer sits $35k below the median for software engineer roles - around the 25th percentile of what the window priced. There is $82k between it and the 75th, and the 75th–90th is where the brief is told to aim when your leverage is strong.
Live figures, not a mockup - these are the bands the brief is handed. The picker holds the 5 roles with the most priced listings whose median sits inside its own band; five percentiles is all a band has, so a position between two of them is interpolated, which is why the percentile carries a ≈.
Why a band, not a number
A median on its own hides the thing you need: how much room is left above the offer before you are outside what this market pays. The brief is told to aim between the 75th and the 90th when your leverage is strong - which is only a sentence anyone can write if the 75th is on the page.
Why the sample size sits next to it
Eleven listings is a signal; three is noise. The count sits beside every band here, the salaries index publishes no median under five listings, and under eight the brief itself is told to treat the band as directional and lean on your leverage instead of precise figures.
What the band is, and isn’t
Percentiles over the midpoints of posted ranges, by role, in a rolling 90-day window - nothing surveyed, nothing modelled. Your brief reads the band for your job’s market when enough listings there name pay, and the national one when they don’t - it says which, every time. Slicing by level is a different job, and it lives in the salary calculator.
Leverage isn’t a mindset. It’s a list of facts.
Everyone gets told to negotiate with confidence, which is advice that assumes you already know what you are holding. You usually don’t - the details that give you room are scattered across a work history you wrote months ago. The brief does the unglamorous version: it reads them back as specifics, in the words you’d actually say.
- It is given two things, and only two - the real band for the role, and your own work-history entries. Every point comes from one of them.
- Nothing is invented on your behalf. It is never told about your other applications, so it cannot claim a competing offer you don’t have.
- Three to five points, each one sayable - a sentence you could use in the call, not a paragraph about knowing your worth.
You have run the surface this role owns
Your Acme entry is the checkout and payments work - the same territory the role is being opened for, which is the half of a requirement that is hard to hire for.
From your work history · Acme Corp · 2021–2023There is a number attached to the work
Failed payments down 31% over two quarters is an outcome, not a responsibility - and it is the kind of sentence a recruiter can repeat to a hiring manager.
From that entry’s own bullets - the checkout redesignThe offer sits under the middle of the band
It is below the median for the role and the 75th is still above it. That gap is a fact about the market, not a claim about you, which is what makes it sayable.
From the market band - the percentiles aboveYou are negotiating from inside a job
Your current entry has no end date. A start date and a notice period are yours to give, and they cost the company nothing to accept.
From your work history · the entry still openTwo inputs, no others. Interview prep validates every story against a real entry before it is stored; the negotiation brief has no such gate, which is exactly why it is kept this close to what it was handed.
The hardest part is the first sentence. It’s already written.
Most counters die in the drafting. The brief stores one finished block of text: it names the band, gives one number, and hands them two ways to say yes. Say it on the call, paste it into the reply, or use it as the shape of your own.
Counter script - copy-readyOne block, as the brief stores it
ExampleHi Dana - thank you for this, and for how straightforward the process has been. I want to make it work, so I'll be direct about the one open item.
Looking at what this role has paid across live postings in the last ninety days, the midpoint sits around $185k and the offer is at $170k. Given the payments work I'd be brought in for, I'd be glad to sign at $200k base.
If base is capped at this level, I'm flexible on how we get there - a sign-on that covers the gap for year one, or this base with a six-month review written into the letter. Either works for me.
Everything else about the role is right, and I'd like to be signed by Friday. Happy to jump on a call if that's easier than email.
No offer you don’t have. The generator is never told about your other applications, so a competing process cannot appear in here - and neither can a number you would have to defend in the next question.
What makes it land - our reading, not a field in the brief
- Opens warm, and signals you intend to sign.
- One number, tied to a source rather than a feeling.
- Two ways to get there, so a no on base doesn’t end it.
- Closes with a date, not an ultimatum.
And when base won’t move
Base is one lever of six, and usually the most constrained. The brief names three to five of the others - each one something a recruiter can approve without reopening the band. What to ask for, and when it works:
Equity
Ask: A larger initial grant, or a refresh written into the offer letter. Works when: The company is private and cash-tight - equity comes from a different pool than salary.
Sign-on bonus
Ask: A one-off covering the gap for year one, or the bonus you are walking away from. Works when: The band is genuinely capped - this is off-band money and rarely needs a new approval.
Start date
Ask: Two to four extra weeks. Works when: You need to close out a notice period - it costs them nothing and buys goodwill.
Title
Ask: The senior variant of the same role. Works when: Your scope already matches it - it resets the band for your next two moves.
Remote
Ask: The specific arrangement named in the letter, not “we’re flexible.” Works when: The team already works this way - verbal flexibility leaves with the manager who promised it.
PTO
Ask: The days in writing, or a review of the accrual schedule. Works when: Policy is set but the starting balance isn't - the first year is usually the negotiable one.
A note on what this is. LandEarly publishes market data compiled from live job postings and helps you draft what to send. It is not financial, legal, tax or employment advice, no outcome is guaranteed, and the decision on any offer is yours. For advice on your specific situation, talk to a qualified professional.
It starts when the offer does.
The worst time to go looking for market data is the afternoon you are handed a number and asked what you think. So the brief is compiled off the stage change itself - the moment the application becomes an offer - and is sitting on it when you open the page.
- The stage change is the trigger. When an application reaches Offer - read out of your inbox, or moved by you - the brief is compiled off that, with no button to remember.
- It runs once and never overwrites. The automatic pass skips outright if a brief already exists, so it can never replace one you built yourself.
- One email, then silence. A single message saying the brief is there, and only if status emails are on.
- Give it the actual number. The base-offer field on the application is optional - enter what you were offered and the brief is rewritten against it rather than anchored to the band alone.
The application reaches Offer
Read out of your inbox by the same watcher that keeps the board honest, or moved by you. Either way it is a stage change, and the stage change is the trigger.
By application trackingThe band is pulled for the role
p10 through p90 over the priced listings in the 90-day window, with the count attached. Those numbers are ground truth - the generator is told not to invent any others.
The brief is written
The read, a target anchored to the band, three to five leverage points, the counter, and the levers beyond base. It never overwrites one you already made.
One email: your brief is ready
Sent once, if status emails are on. No countdown, no second nudge.
Or build it yourself, from the application, before any of this happens - and hand it the base you were offered to have it rewritten against your actual number.
Go straight to the numbers.
Medians and quartiles per role, published only once a role clears five priced listings in the window. Every band on this page comes from here.
Salary calculatorFreeSlice the same listings by level and location before you name a number.
Interview prepThe brief that reads the same work history for the room before this one.
All featuresThe full LandEarly workflow, from discovery to offer.
Know the number before you have to answer it.
Start with 3 free applications. By the time one of them turns into an offer, the band, the leverage and the counter are already sitting there.