Founder vesting calculator

No. The math is best-effort and meant to prepare you for a conversation with a CPA and startup counsel — not to substitute for one. Real vesting terms depend on your company's specific legal documents, and tax outcomes depend on your jurisdiction, other income, and AMT exposure.

Standard cliff-then-linear vesting: nothing vests before the cliff; on the cliff date, (cliff months / vesting months) of the grant vests in one lump; after that, one equal monthly tranche vests each month until the total is reached. Defaults are 48 months with a 12-month cliff — the standard NVCA-template schedule for institutional-VC-backed companies.

Four options. 'None' means standard vesting with no acceleration. 'N months of double-trigger' assumes a qualifying termination on a specified date and vests N additional months on top of what was already vested at that date. 'Full double-trigger' vests 100% of the remaining grant on termination. 'Full single-trigger' vests 100% on change of control regardless of termination.

With the election, we tax the whole grant's spread (FMV minus strike) at the marginal ordinary rate at grant time, plus long-term capital gains on growth from grant FMV to expected exit FMV. Without the election, each vesting tranche is taxed as ordinary income at an interpolated FMV assuming linear growth from grant FMV to expected exit FMV, plus capital gains on any residual growth. The linear-growth assumption is simplistic — real FMV moves in step changes at priced rounds.

Yes. Click 'Copy shareable link' and every input is encoded in the URL. Send that link to your co-founder or lawyer and they'll see the exact same numbers.

The plain-English mechanics — vesting, 83(b), acceleration, international caveats — are in our editorial field guide on founder vesting cliffs, linked from the top of this page.