How to Ask for a Raise (and the Number to Ask For)

To ask for a raise effectively, you need three things before you walk into the conversation: a specific number grounded in market data and inflation, a concise record of your recent contributions, and the right moment on the calendar. Most people skip at least one of these and either ask too late, ask for too little, or ask without evidence — and then wonder why the answer is no. This guide covers all three and gives you a conversation structure you can use.

Start with the number — before anything else

The most common mistake in raise negotiations is not having a specific number ready. If you go in and say "I was hoping for something more," you have already put yourself in a weak position — your manager will anchor the conversation wherever they want. You need to name a figure first, and it should be higher than your floor.

There are two inputs that should determine your number: market rate for your role and inflation. Neither alone is enough. If you only cite CPI, you may ask for too little — your salary could be under market and you would not know it. If you only cite a market comparison, you ignore the fact that your existing salary has lost purchasing power over time.

How to find your market rate

Use at least two sources and look specifically at your role title, experience level, and city — not national averages if you are in a high-cost market. Glassdoor, LinkedIn Salary, Levels.fyi (for tech), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program all publish salary data. If you see a consistent range across sources, your market rate is approximately the midpoint of that range for your years of experience.

If your current salary is below that midpoint, you have a market-rate argument. If it is at or above the midpoint but inflation has eroded your real purchasing power, you have a cost-of-living argument. In many cases you have both.

The inflation adjustment you are probably missing

A 3% raise in a year when inflation runs at 3.5% is not a raise in any meaningful sense — your purchasing power declined. The formula that captures this is the real raise: ((1 + nominal raise) / (1 + inflation) − 1) × 100. At 3% nominal and 3.5% CPI, your real raise is −0.48%. You took a pay cut.

This compounding effect is not trivial over a career. Two employees starting at $90,000 — one receiving 3% annually with 3.5% CPI, one negotiating 5.5% annually — will be $40,000 apart in real purchasing power after ten years. The gap widens every year.

When to ask: timing matters more than most people think

The single best moment to ask for a raise is right after a visible win — a project shipped successfully, a client retained, a metric improved — while that result is still recent in your manager's memory. Recency bias is real: managers remember the last few months more than the full year, especially right before review season when they are managing many conversations at once.

The second-best moment is two to three months before your annual review, not during it. By the time your review arrives, most managers have already decided on numbers and may have limited flexibility to change them. Asking early gives them time to advocate for you in budget discussions.

Avoid asking during organizational turbulence — layoffs, leadership changes, a missed quarter — unless you have exceptional leverage. The money simply may not be there, and a "no" delivered under duress is harder to revisit than a "not yet" in a normal environment.

Build a case file, not a speech

Your manager will almost certainly need to justify any raise to their own manager or HR. Your job is to make that justification easy for them. That means presenting your case in writing — a brief document or even a few bullet points in an email — rather than expecting them to remember what you said in a conversation.

A strong case file includes four things:

• Specific contributions with measurable outcomes. "Led the Q1 launch, which drove $400K in new revenue" is useful. "Worked hard on several projects" is not. If your work does not produce metrics directly, find a proxy: time saved, error rate reduced, headcount supported, customer satisfaction improved.
• Scope expansion. Are you doing more than you were hired to do? Managing people informally? Covering a gap left by a departure? This is often the clearest argument for a raise — your compensation has not kept pace with your responsibilities.
• Market data. Print or paste two or three salary citations from credible sources. Show the range, show where you fall, let the numbers speak.
• Your ask. State it clearly. "Based on this, I am requesting a salary adjustment to $95,000." Ambiguity helps no one.

The conversation: how to open and how to respond

Request a dedicated meeting — not a catch-up, not the last five minutes of a one-on-one. Tell your manager directly: "I'd like to schedule some time to discuss my compensation." This signals seriousness without drama and gives them time to prepare.

In the meeting, open with context before the number. Briefly acknowledge the market and what you have contributed, then state your ask: "Based on the market data I have looked at for this role and my contributions over the past year, I am requesting a base salary of $95,000." Then stop talking. Silence is not your enemy here — filling it with qualifications weakens your position.

Common responses and how to handle them

When cash is not available: alternatives worth negotiating

If your employer genuinely cannot move on base salary right now — budget freeze, headcount constraints, end-of-fiscal-year timing — that is not necessarily the end of the conversation. Several non-salary items have real dollar value:

• One-time bonus. Easier to approve than a permanent salary increase because it does not compound forward. A $5,000 bonus is not the same as a $5,000 raise, but it is real money.
• Accelerated promotion timeline. If a promotion comes with a higher salary band, getting the promotion six months earlier is a raise — it just arrives on a delay.
• Additional PTO. Paid time off has a calculable dollar value: one extra week for a $90,000 employee is worth roughly $1,730. Not nothing.
• Remote work flexibility. If commuting costs you $300 a month, full remote work is worth $3,600 a year in take-home purchasing power.
• Professional development budget. Courses, certifications, and conferences that your employer pays for are compensation you would otherwise pay for yourself.

Negotiate these as a package if base salary is stuck. Get any agreement in writing, even just an email confirmation from your manager. Memory is selective.

After the conversation: what to do next

If you received a raise, verify that it shows up correctly in your next paycheck. Errors happen. Then update your personal salary record — the date, the amount, the context. This becomes useful evidence in your next negotiation.

If you received less than you asked for, or a "not now," set a calendar reminder for three months out to follow up. At that point, check in with your manager: "We talked about revisiting my compensation in Q3 — I wanted to make sure that is still on the calendar." Polite persistence matters.

If the answer was a firm no with no path forward, that is information. External market benchmarking — talking to recruiters, applying selectively — is not disloyalty. It is due diligence on your largest asset: your earning capacity. The most common reason people finally receive a meaningful raise is that they received and shared a competing offer. This is not a tactic to manufacture — but if you are genuinely exploring and receive one, it is worth knowing what it is worth.

A note on real vs. nominal raises — the number that actually matters

When evaluating any raise offer, always convert it to a real raise before accepting. A 4% raise in a year with 4.5% inflation is a real cut of approximately 0.5%. Over five years of accepting inflation-lagging raises, an employee earning $80,000 can find themselves with a nominal salary of $96,000 but a purchasing power equivalent to $78,000 in today's dollars — effectively a pay decline despite years of raises.

The formula: Real raise % = ((1 + nominal%) / (1 + CPI%) − 1) × 100. Plug in your numbers before you decide whether to accept, negotiate further, or walk away. Figro's raise calculator does this math instantly, along with a ten-year compounding projection that shows exactly how the gap grows if you accept today's number.

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