Know what the offer is actually worth
Not "salaries in tech" — your occupation, in your metro, at the percentile your number actually lands on. From the federal wage survey, with the source in your hands.
Salary & offer negotiation · Federal wage data
The typical US pay band is $31,000 wide. Find out where your offer sits — and walk in knowing exactly what to say.
Voiced is a negotiation workbook built from your own offer. Six questions, and it reads your number against federal wage data for your role and your metro — then hands you the number to ask for, the counter-offer email word for word, and an answer to every pushback you named.
In 87% of US occupations, the step from mid-band to the top quarter is worth more than $10,000 a year.
6 questions load your real offer. You see where your number stands against the market in minutes — free, no card, no account. The workbook that turns it into what to ask for and how to ask is once — not a subscription, nothing auto-renews.
From your workbook
Base askNever say this
"I was hoping, if possible, we could maybe look at the base again?"
Say this instead
"Based on the scope and my competing offer, I'm looking for $X on base. Where can we get to?"
Why: "hoping, if possible, maybe" hands back the ask before they answer. State the number, then make them respond to it.
Your number
Your pushbacks
In seconds
- Your offer against real wage data
- The counter-offer email, word for word
- An answer to every pushback you named
Where that number comes from
$31,000
Median spread between the 25th and 75th percentile of pay, across 369 US occupations.
$17,480
Median step from the middle of the band to the top quarter — one year, base pay only.
87%
Share of occupations where that step is worth more than $10,000 a year.
Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 reference period. Base pay only — OEWS excludes equity and nonproduction bonuses. These are market-wide figures, not a promise about your offer: run your own occupation and metro through the free calculator to see your band, or download the dataset and check the arithmetic yourself.
The real job
One conversation. Three things you need to walk in with.
Have a number, and one sentence that defends it
A figure you can say out loud without flinching, and the single line that makes it defensible — written against the band, not pulled out of the air.
Know what to say when they push
Word for word: the two pushbacks you named, the five they always use, and the sentences that quietly cost money — with what to say instead.
Right now, if this is you
The offer landed 40 minutes ago. Good number — but you know there's more, and a few percent here is five figures over the year.
You have until Friday to respond. Maybe there's a competing offer in play, maybe not.
You've already asked ChatGPT what to write. It gave you a polite paragraph and told you your pitch sounded confident and strong. It's 11pm. You don't believe it — and it never told you whether your number is high, low, or exactly average for your role in your city.
That's the exact moment Voiced is built for.
What "ready" means
You're ready when four things are true.
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You know where your number actually sits
Not "sounds about right" — the percentile, against the published band for your occupation and metro.
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You have a line for every pushback
"That's above our band," "we're at the top of the range," the silence they leave for you to fill — answered in advance, word for word.
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Your counter is already written
The email is drafted with your number in it — you send it, you don't compose it at 11pm.
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You know which sentences leak money
Including the one that ends the negotiation instantly: saying the lowest number you'd accept.
Where your offer stands is free — no card. You see your number against the real pay band for your role and your city before there's ever a charge. What comes after it — the number to ask for, the counter-offer email word for word, the answers to the pushbacks you named — is a one-time payment of , and it's in your hands the second you pay. No subscription. No auto-renew. Nothing hangs on your card. Full refund within 14 days if it isn't worth it — our policy, in plain words.
How Voiced works
Four steps. From "is this a good offer?" to "here's what I'm sending."
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1
Load your actual offer
6 questions: what you're walking into, the role and your level, the number on the table and what you want, your occupation and metro, when you have to answer, and the pushback you're dreading most.
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2
See where it sits — free
Your offer against the published band for that occupation in that metro: the 25th, the median, the 75th, the 90th — and the percentile you're on. No card, no account.
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3
Get your workbook
The number to ask for and the sentence that defends it, your counter-offer email word for word, answers to the pushbacks you named plus the five they always use, the lines that cost money, and your floor.
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4
Send it, then hold the line
It's in your inbox and at a permanent link within seconds of paying — open on your phone mid-call when they push back.
What the free part already tells you
You see your number against the band before you pay anything.
Free · from federal wage data
Your offer of $205,000 sits at roughly the 86th percentile for Software Developers in Austin‑Round Rock‑San Marcos, TX.
- 25th
- $107,263
- Median
- $138,328
- 75th
- $174,024
- 90th
- $216,476
Base pay only — the survey excludes equity and bonuses. Real example, real numbers, from the May 2025 OEWS release.
That much is free, no card and no account. It is also the part no chatbot can do honestly: it needs the actual wage survey for your occupation and your metro, not a plausible-sounding guess.
Then the workbook picks it up
You said you're dreading: "that's the top of the band"
"I hear you, and I'm not going to argue with the constraint. What I'd like to understand is what would need to be true to get to $228,000 — is it a level question, a timing question, or a different line item like a sign-on or an early review? Tell me which one it is and I'll work with it."
You don't need the perfect answer to a band objection. You need one that keeps them talking instead of closing the file.
And the sentence that ends it instantly
"Honestly, anything above $215,000 and I'd take it."
Your walk-away number is the one piece of information that ends the negotiation the moment they have it. Say it once and the offer lands there.
Every line above is built from what you typed into six questions — your occupation, your metro, your number, your pushback. Not a template with blanks in it.
You've probably already tried these
None of them do the one thing you need.
Free ChatGPT
It writes a fluent paragraph and calls your pitch "great" and "confident." What it cannot do is tell you whether $205,000 is the 40th percentile or the 86th for your occupation in your metro — it has no wage survey in front of it, so it produces a number that sounds right. On the one question where being wrong costs you real money, a plausible guess is worse than no answer.
Free "counter-offer email generators"
There are a dozen of them, and they are free for a reason: they are the top of someone else's funnel for résumés and job-application tools. They take three numbers you already knew and format them. None of them opens the federal wage data, because none of them is selling you the answer — they're selling you the next product.
A human coach
The good ones are genuinely worth it — and they start around $1,250, by appointment, on their calendar. That is the right call for a $400k package. It is not what exists at 11pm on Thursday when the deadline is Friday.
Voiced sits in the gap none of them cover: your actual number read against the actual wage data, turned into the words you're going to say — in the time you actually have.
Before you start
Fair questions
Could asking cost me the offer?
No one can promise how a particular employer will react — be wary of anyone who does. What you control is the shape of the ask, and that's what the workbook fixes. You get one number, with one line of justification behind it, and a written counter you read before you send it. A whole section covers the lines that cost money — the range that gets heard as its bottom, the figure with no reason under it — and what to say instead. Every answer to a pushback, including "this is our best and final," accepts their constraint first and asks what it would take: a question of how, not yes or no. And your floor stays yours — it's the one number the workbook tells you never to say out loud.
Can't I just ask ChatGPT for this?
For the wording, honestly, yes — and you'll get a decent paragraph. What you won't get is the part that decides the money: whether your number is the 40th percentile or the 86th for your occupation in your metro. That answer lives in the federal wage survey, and a language model doesn't open it — it produces a figure that reads plausibly. We start from the published band, name the percentile, cite the release, and let you check the arithmetic yourself. The wording is then written around that number instead of around a guess.
What if my exact title or city isn't in the data?
The survey covers 398 occupations across 528 metro and non-metro areas, and it groups job titles into standard occupations — "Software Developers" covers a wide range of engineering titles. You pick the closest one. If your metro isn't published for that occupation, the workbook falls back to national figures and says so on the page, rather than quietly pretending it's local.
Will my comp numbers or employer leak?
Your comp numbers and employer name are stripped out of our analytics and error logs before they leave your device. And you never have to name your real employer at all — the workbook is built from your occupation, your metro and your numbers; the company field is optional. See how we handle your data in our Privacy Policy.
Will I get surprise-charged?
No — and that's on purpose. Seeing where your offer stands is free, no card, no account. The workbook is a one-time payment of , not a subscription — it's yours at a permanent link, and we keep it there so you can come back to it. Nothing auto-renews. Nothing quietly bills you next month. A year from now, a new offer is a fresh one-tap purchase, on your terms. Full refund within 14 days if it isn't worth it — see Refunds.
How Friday goes instead
You send the email Thursday night, with a number you can defend and a sentence that defends it. Friday they call. They open with the band — the exact line you're holding an answer to, written down, on the phone in your hand. You don't improvise, you don't hedge, and you never say the lowest figure you'd have taken. Whatever they come back with, you asked from a position you could show your work for — and you didn't torch the offer to get there.
The deadline is coming either way. Walk in knowing your number.
6 questions. Your offer read against the real pay band in minutes — free, no card, no account. You see the numbers before there's ever a charge.