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Equity sharing calculator
Excluding co-founders, companies typically have a total share scheme pool of c. 10-20%. Of this, depending on the nature of the business and its development path, up to 10% may be for early key hires (eg CTO, CMO, CFO), with 10% then being earmarked for the balance of the team over time.
The maths below assumes that the percentages you input are what the individual holds at the end of the process, once everything has been issued. This article goes over the ideas here in a bit more detail.
How to use the calculator
- Add your current shareholders, then work through each group you plan to reward: co-founders, key early hires, senior management, employees and investors.
- Give each person their end-state ownership percentage.
- Enter a possible exit valuation to see everyone's final shareholding and gross payout.
Current shareholding
This section should include all the shares already in issue, though you can group shareholders if it's easier.
| Name | Number of shares | Ownership | Actions |
|---|
Ownership across all groups can't reach or exceed 100%. Please lower one or more percentages.
Final shareholding
| Name | Number of shares | Ownership | Gross payout |
|---|
What is a gross payout?
A gross payout is simply a shareholder's ownership percentage multiplied by the exit valuation, before tax, fees or any other deductions. It's a useful way to bring equity to life for your team.
The actual amount someone takes home will usually be lower, once things like Capital Gains Tax and deal costs are taken into account. Read the full explainer.
This calculator makes some assumptions
Since it is not possible to issue fractions of a share, this calculator always rounds any fractions down to the nearest whole share.
To make it possible to grant smaller percentages, companies often subdivide their share capital, so that each share represents a smaller percentage of the total.