Understand the offer before you sign it.
CTCtruth helps professionals in India understand what their compensation actually means, from fixed pay and variable pay to PF, gratuity, equity and take-home.
Our missionTo bring clarity to what an Indian job offer really pays, before you sign it.
- Total cost to company: ₹28,00,000 p.a.The headline, not your salary
- Basic salary: ₹11,20,000 p.a.PF and gratuity are worked out from this
- Performance bonus: ₹3,00,000 (target)A target, not a guarantee
- Joining bonus: ₹2,00,000Repayable if you leave within 18 months
- ESOPs: ₹8,00,000, vesting over 4 yearsPaper value, not cash
Clarity
Every major part of the CTC, explained.
Empowerment
Ask the questions worth asking before you sign.
Privacy
Your offer is sensitive. It's read on your device, not uploaded.
Checked, not guessed
Where the data doesn't support a number, CTCtruth says so.
The number on your offer letter isn't the number in your bank account.
In India, offers are commonly quoted as CTC: cost to company. That number bundles things that are never paid to you as monthly salary: the employer's PF contribution, a gratuity provision, a variable bonus that depends on performance, a one-time joining bonus, and sometimes the value of stock options.
Two offers with the same CTC can differ by thousands of rupees a month in what actually reaches your account. Offer letters rarely make that easy to see, and the moment you're asked to sign is a bad time to be doing the arithmetic by hand.
- Fixed pay₹19.1L
- Variable pay₹3L
- Employer PF₹1.3L
- Gratuity₹0.5L
- Joining bonus₹2L
- Equity₹2L
Only fixed pay arrives every month.
≈ ₹1.33L a month, after your PF, professional tax and income tax.
CTC is a container, not a paycheck.
Some components are recurring cash. Others are conditional, deferred, one-time or paper value. Structures vary by employer; the analyzer reads yours.
- Fixed payRecurring cash
Basic, HRA and allowances. Paid monthly, then taxed.
- PF + gratuityDeferred
Retirement savings, and a provision generally paid only after five years.
- Variable payConditional
Quoted at target. What's paid depends on ratings and company results.
- Joining bonusOne-time
Paid once in year one, and often repayable if you leave early.
- EquityPaper value
ESOPs or RSUs that vest over years. Not cash until you can sell them.
Built for people making career decisions.
- 01
Your first offer
Understand what your first salary actually means before you accept it.
- 02
Switching jobs
See how much of the new CTC becomes recurring cash.
- 03
Comparing offers
Put competing offers on the same financial basis.
- 04
Negotiating
Identify the compensation questions worth discussing with HR.
What CTCtruth actually does.
- 01
Decode
Reads the compensation annexure from a PDF, Word file or pasted text, and shows where each number was found.
Open in the analyzer - 02
Reconcile
Checks whether the components add up to the CTC, and shows any part that isn't explained.
Open in the analyzer - 03
Calculate
Estimates recurring cash, income tax under both regimes, and take-home after PF and professional tax.
Open in the analyzer - 04
Compare
Saves offers in your browser and puts up to three side by side on what they pay.
Open in the analyzer - 05
Simulate
Projects four years ahead under cautious, base and strong scenarios, and shows when a switch pays for itself.
Open in the analyzer - 06
Explain
Labels each value with its source, lists assumptions, flags clawbacks and vesting, and drafts questions for HR.
Open in the analyzer
We don't guess your compensation.
If an offer letter doesn't provide enough information, CTCtruth shows what is unknown instead of silently inventing a number. Most calculators fill gaps with defaults, such as assuming PF sits inside the CTC or that Basic is 40% of it, and hand you a precise-looking number.
- Basic salaryStated in the offer letter₹12,00,000Known
- Employer PF12% of Basic, by a stated rule₹1,44,000Derived
- Variable payoutLabelled, and yours to change75% of targetAssumed
- Gratuity inside CTC?Not stated, so not counted. Ask HR—Unknown
Unknown is a valid answer.
- Blank is not zeroAn empty field stays unknown. It's never quietly treated as ₹0; zero means zero.
- Unknown isn't salaryIf part of the CTC isn't explained, it's shown on its own instead of being folded into your pay.
- Derived values are labelledA figure worked out by a rule says so, and which rule.
- Assumptions are visibleWhere one is unavoidable, such as a variable payout, it's labelled and yours to change.
- Confidence reflects the inputsEach result says how complete the inputs are and why its confidence is high, medium or low.
Your compensation is personal.
Offer letters carry your salary, your role and often your PAN and phone number. So CTCtruth is built to work without seeing them.
Read on your device
The analyzer runs entirely in your browser. Offer letters are read on your device and are never uploaded.
No accounts or tracking
There are no accounts, no analytics and no third-party scripts. Fonts and libraries are served from this site.
Saved only where you save it
Saved offers stay in this browser's local storage. Export or delete them from My offers; clearing your browser data removes them.
Messages you send
The only thing that leaves your device is a message you choose to send through the contact form. It's delivered through Netlify Forms and used only to reply to you.
Because contact form messages do leave your device, please describe issues in general terms rather than pasting your offer letter into them. The privacy policy has the full details.
Where CTCtruth has limits.
CTCtruth estimates. It doesn't replace your employer's payroll or a tax professional. In particular:
Tax estimates
Tax outcomes depend on the inputs and the tax year you select.
- Professional tax uses one annual figure per city and doesn't model every state's salary slabs.
- The old regime covers standard deduction, HRA exemption, 80C (including your PF), 80D, 24(b) and 80CCD(1B). Other deductions aren't modelled.
- The old regime uses the rates for individuals below 60; the analyzer doesn't ask for age, so senior citizens' higher exemptions aren't applied.
Employer-specific policies
Your employer's payroll can apply rules differently from the general ones.
- HRA exemption uses the metro rate for the cities marked as metro in the analyzer. Check how your employer applies it.
Document extraction
Offer letters vary in wording and layout.
- Document reading uses pattern matching. It finds common labels, but it can miss or misread unusual layouts, which is why every value is shown for you to check.
Not professional advice
CTCtruth estimates and explains. It doesn't replace a tax professional.
- For decisions with tax or legal consequences, check with a qualified professional and with your employer's policies.
How the numbers are calculated.
The rules, the sources they come from, and how results are kept consistent.
Tax rules, by tax year
Tax year 2026–27 follows the Income-tax Act, 2025, in force from 1 April 2026, with the rates confirmed by the Finance Act 2026: new-regime slabs under section 202, the section 156 rebate (up to ₹60,000 for income up to ₹12 lakh, with marginal relief), standard deduction under section 19, surcharge capped at 25% in the new regime with marginal relief, and 4% cess. FY 2024–25 and FY 2025–26 follow the Finance (No. 2) Act 2024 and the Finance Act 2025. Each offer is worked out under the tax year you select; tax year 2026–27 is the default.
Official sources for tax year 2026–27:
- Income-tax Act, 2025, as quoted in the Memorandum explaining the Finance Bill, 2026: Section 202(1): new-regime slab rates for tax year 2026-27
- Income-tax Act, 2025: Section 19(1), Table Sl. 2: standard deduction ₹75,000 under section 202(1), ₹50,000 otherwise
- Income-tax Act, 2025: Section 156: rebate up to ₹60,000 (income ≤ ₹12 lakh, with marginal relief) and ₹12,500 (income ≤ ₹5 lakh)
- Finance Bill, 2026: First Schedule, Part I-B, Paragraph A: old-regime rates; Paragraph F: old-regime surcharge
- Finance Bill, 2026: Clause 3(4) Table Sl. 10 and 3(5): section 202 surcharge (10%/15%/25%) with marginal relief
- Memorandum explaining the Finance Bill, 2026: Rates for tax year 2026-27: no change in rates; 37% surcharge not applicable under section 202; 4% Health & Education Cess
PF and gratuity
Gratuity follows the Payment of Gratuity Act 1972 formula: 15 × monthly Basic ÷ 26 for each year of service. PF follows the Employees' Provident Funds Act 1952, at 12% of Basic or the statutory wage ceiling, depending on what the offer says.
How results are kept consistent
The calculation engine is deterministic: the same inputs and tax year always give the same result. It's versioned (engine v2.6.0, shown in the analyzer), so a change to a rule or to the engine can change a result, and the version tells you which rules produced it. 182 of 182 automated checks pass, including invariants such as "unknown input never becomes zero"; you can run them from inside the analyzer.
Corrections
Spotted a wrong rule or a changed slab? Tell us; corrections are the most useful feedback there is.
Have an offer?
Understand it before you sign.
Turn a complicated compensation structure into numbers you can actually understand and compare.
- Transparent calculations
- Explicit assumptions
- Privacy-first