Salary negotiation for startup offers

Base salary is the easiest number to compare and the least complete picture. Ask for the full breakdown in writing: base, target bonus and how it's calculated, equity (number of shares or percentage, current valuation, vesting schedule), and start-date specifics like signing bonus or relocation. You can't negotiate a number you don't fully understand.

“I have another offer at $X” is the classic anchor, and it works when it's true. If you don't have a competing offer, anchor on your researched range instead: “Based on what I'm seeing for this scope of role, I was expecting closer to $X — is there room to get there?” is a request, not a threat, and it reads that way.

Startups negotiate equity and title more easily than they renegotiate a published base band. If base is genuinely capped, ask about the lever that isn't: signing bonus, an accelerated review, or additional equity.

A recruiter saying the band is fixed is often true — many startups have hard bands tied to level, not politics. That doesn't mean nothing is negotiable; it means you should ask which part of the package does have flexibility instead of pushing on the part that doesn't.

Startups will sometimes offer more equity in exchange for a lower base. That trade is only worth taking if you'd be comfortable treating the equity as effectively worth $0 today — a bet on the company, not a guaranteed part of your compensation. If losing that bet would genuinely hurt, weight the trade toward base, not equity, regardless of how the offer is framed.