See what you forfeit by leaving before your vesting cliff.
Forfeit if you leave now
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Months until cliff
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Value unlocked at cliff
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Your breakdown
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The cliff is a retention lock
Equity grants almost never vest on day one. Employers use a cliff, a minimum stretch of service before any shares vest at all, to make sure they are rewarding people who stay. The standard package is a four-year vest with a one-year cliff: nothing vests for the first twelve months, then a full quarter of the grant vests the day you cross the cliff, and the rest trickles in monthly or quarterly over the remaining three years. Leave one day before the cliff and you walk away with zero. This tool puts a dollar figure on exactly what that timing costs you.
The arithmetic the calculator uses is straightforward. It takes your total grant value, works out what fraction of the vesting period the cliff represents, and treats that fraction as the slug of value the cliff unlocks. If you leave before reaching it, that entire amount is forfeited. If you stay past it, that value vests at once and the schedule continues.
Three months from a $50,000 unlock
Run the defaults. You hold a grant worth $200,000 vesting over 4 years, which is 48 months, with a 12-month cliff, and you are 9 months into the job. The cliff represents 12 of the 48 months, so it unlocks $200,000 times 12 divided by 48, which is $50,000. Because your 9 months of tenure is short of the 12-month cliff, leaving today forfeits the full $50,000. You are just 3 months away from the cliff, so staying one more quarter converts that $50,000 from forfeited to vested. Framed as a rate, those three months are effectively worth $50,000, a powerful reason not to resign a few weeks early.
Vested value across the four years
The chart shows how value accrues to you under a one-year cliff. For the first 12 months the line sits flat at zero, the danger zone where leaving costs everything. At month 12 it jumps to $50,000, the cliff unlock, then climbs steadily to the full $200,000 by month 48. The teal segment marks where you stand at month 9, still on the flat stretch.
Reading the cliff before you make a move
This tool is for employees weighing a resignation, a counteroffer, or a job switch when unvested equity is on the table, and for candidates comparing offers where the vesting terms differ. The practical judgment it supports: never time a departure casually when you are close to a cliff. If you are weeks away from a one-year cliff, the cost of leaving early can dwarf a signing bonus elsewhere. Read your grant agreement for the exact cliff date and confirm whether vesting is measured from your start date or your grant date, because they are not always the same.
A few traps to watch. RSUs at public companies typically have value the moment they vest, but options only pay off if the strike price is below the share price, so an underwater option grant may be worth less than this estimate implies. Private-company equity may have no liquidity for years regardless of vesting. And the tax treatment differs sharply: vested RSUs are taxed as ordinary income on your W-2 at vesting, while options and restricted stock can involve Section 83 and, in some cases, an 83(b) election that must be filed within 30 days of grant. Quantify the dollars here, then take the tax and liquidity questions to a professional before acting.
Does a new employer ever make up for forfeited equity?
Sometimes. Companies recruiting you away may offer a signing bonus or a make-whole equity grant to offset what you give up by leaving before your cliff. It is a normal thing to negotiate. Bring the forfeiture figure from this tool to the table as your starting number, since you cannot ask to be made whole on an amount you have not quantified.
What happens to my cliff if the company is acquired?
It depends on the acceleration terms in your grant. Some grants include single-trigger acceleration, where a change of control vests shares immediately, or double-trigger, which also requires you to be let go after the deal. Many grants have neither, in which case an acquisition does not change your cliff at all. Read the acceleration language carefully, because it can be worth a great deal in a buyout.
Is the cliff always one year?
One year is the most common, but it is a convention, not a rule. Some startups use shorter cliffs of three or six months, and a few executive grants have longer ones. This calculator lets you set the cliff in months precisely because terms vary, so enter the figure from your own agreement rather than assuming twelve.