You handed in your notice. Your manager came back with more money. Now what?
The data on counter-offers is unkind: across our verified-offer dataset, candidates who accept a counter-offer at their current company leave within 18 months at a noticeably higher rate than those who took the new role. The number isn't the reason most people leave.
Run any counter-offer through these four questions before you decide.
1. Why did they have to be asked?
If your current employer needed your resignation letter to find the budget for a raise, that's information about how they've been thinking about you. Worth sitting with.
2. What changes besides the money?
A higher salary in the same role doing the same work for the same manager is rarely what you actually wanted. If the answer is "nothing else changes," the structural reasons you started looking are still there.
3. What does the next 12 months look like for the team?
Counter-offers often coincide with periods where the company can't afford to lose you. Layoffs, restructure, a project that has to ship. Ask plainly: "what's the team plan for the next 12 months?" Listen for whether it sounds different from before.
4. If they'd offered this number 6 months ago, would you still have looked?
The honest answer is the one that matters most. If the answer is yes, money wasn't the reason. Don't pretend it was now.
What people actually do
About 1 in 5 GotAJob candidates with a counter-offer end up staying. The ones who say it worked out have one thing in common: there was a real, structural change alongside the money — new manager, new scope, new team.