Shoralis How to ask for a raise: the numbers before and after the negotiation
Timing: negotiate from strength
Salary conversations open with contribution, not with the calendar. The strongest moments: right after shipping a major project, when your responsibility formally grows, or with an alternative offer in hand.
Spend the weeks before review season building a concrete list of results — the side that speaks in numbers wins the negotiation, not the side that speaks in feelings.
Prepare your number: real growth
Pull your tier from industry salary surveys; then take the critical step — subtract inflation from last year's raise. A 25% raise under 40% inflation is a real pay cut: the "I got a raise" feeling hides the loss.
Name a single figure, not a range. Negotiation research shows the side that asks for one number does better on average; give a range and the other side anchors on the bottom.
Negotiate more than salary
Salary is one line item: bonus, vacation days, remote-work days, training budget, title. If the budget is frozen, there are other things your manager can give — put the whole package on the table.
And negotiation is not one-directional: if the counter-offer is weak, your next step (internal transfer, external offer) is part of the deal too.
The 30-year effect of a raise
The real power of a 10% raise compounds through your savings rate: if the increase is not spent, savings grow by the same share. Over a 30-year horizon that can pull retirement years earlier.
Open a branch in Shoralis with the "Salary change" decision: enter 10%, tie the increase to a monthly investment, and see side by side — in three scenarios — how many months earlier you hit your goal. Walk into the negotiation with that chart.
Test this decision in the simulator
Run two lives side by side: with and without the decision. See the net-wealth gap in a projection of up to 30 years.
Open the simulator