The system of record for how work actually happens.
The salary calculator answers \"what's the take-home\" once the offer is signed. The builder answers \"what should the structure look like\" before that — work backwards from a target in-hand, forwards from a CTC, or load a template and tune. The live preview updates every component as you change one.
₹1,20,000/ mo · metro
Three directions
The kind of conversation drives the mode. Negotiating a counter-offer for a candidate who's named their take-home? Reverse-build a CTC. Approved budget and HR signoff for the new joiner? Forward-allocate. Closing five hires for the same role with the same shape? Load the template and stamp it five times. Same engine, three entry points.
Type the monthly net the candidate has asked for. The studio solves for the CTC that produces it — accounting for the regime, the metro / non-metro HRA basis, the default deduction stack — and presents the structure that hits the target. Use this when negotiation has anchored on a number.
Offer negotiation · counter-offers · matching an existing comp
Budget is set; HR has the headcount-cost approval; the question is just "how should we structure the ₹18L?". The studio applies the default component ratios (basic 50% / HRA 22% metro / special 20% / reimb 8%), shows the resulting take-home, and lets you tune. Most common starting mode.
Fresh hires · approved budgets · standard structures
Hiring sprees for the same role share the same shape — junior, mid, senior, leadership. Save a template once with the right ratios, regime defaults, and reimbursement components; reuse it for every offer for that level. Templates persist in your browser; you can export and share them.
Bulk hiring · role-band consistency · onboarding packs
Allocation patterns
The same CTC produces wildly different take-home and corpus outcomes depending on how the components are weighted. The studio ships four named patterns that represent the most common employer preferences — pick one as the starting structure and tune from there. Custom ratios are saved as new templates.
HIGH BASIC
BALANCED
TAKE-HOME-MAX
RETIREMENT-MAX
Basic anchored at 50%+, large EPF contribution, larger gratuity accrual, larger bonus base. Take-home is lower today but the retirement corpus compounds for the long career. The pattern most listed-companies default to.
The textbook split — basic ~50%, HRA at metro cap, special as the residue, reimbursements at the typical limits. The studio's default starting point unless a template overrides it.
Basic at the 40% floor, special allowance maximised. Smaller EPF (less compounding) but more cash in hand today. The pattern offered by startups recruiting against larger CTCs from established firms.
Adds employer NPS (up to 10% of basic + DA) to the structure. The 80CCD(2) deduction reduces taxable income in both regimes. Useful when the candidate values tax-deferred savings over immediate take-home.
Optimisation axes
No allocation is universally 'best' — every pattern trades one outcome for another. The studio surfaces four axes the structure is implicitly balancing: take-home today, retirement corpus tomorrow, tax efficiency under the chosen regime, and compliance comfort. Hold any two as priorities; watch the others adjust.
Maxes take-home, dominates the visible-cash axis but leaves the retirement corpus underweight. Compliance stays acceptable but tax efficiency is mid-pack.
Sacrifices a bit of take-home for stronger corpus + tax efficiency. Higher compliance comfort with clean ratios. The studio's default starting shape.
Maximised when basic is low (less PF deducted), special allowance is high, and the regime is the new one (no lost exemptions). The candidate's most-visible number.
Lower retirement corpus over a career.
Maximised when basic is high (12% match on a larger base), EPF wage cap is uncapped, employer NPS is added under 80CCD(2). Compounds over a 25-year career to a meaningful sum.
Lower monthly take-home today.
Old regime when HRA + 80C + 80D + home-loan interest stack to ≥ ₹3L of deductions. New regime when those are weak. The studio runs both and surfaces the better one.
Old regime requires investment + documentation.
Higher when the structure sits comfortably above floors (basic ≥ 40%) and below caps (HRA ≤ 50% metro). Structures that game the ratios for short-term gains attract IT-department scrutiny.
Less freedom in component allocation.
Offer-letter shaping
An offer letter has three audiences with three different reading habits. The candidate scans for the gross + take-home + bonus. The auditor reads the component math and the statutory references. The bank sees the CTC + employer-cost grand total. The studio exports all three views from the same underlying structure.
The candidate-facing one-pager. Annual CTC at the top in serif. Monthly gross + take-home immediately under it. Earning components grouped on the left, deductions on the right. Bonus expectations and ESOP/RSU notes as a separate block. No statutory references.
The auditor / HR-business-partner view. Every component with its formula reference (HRA capped at 50% basic / 10(13A)), every deduction with its statutory citation (Section 192 TDS / EPF 12% Sec 2(c) / ESI Sec 39), every accrual (gratuity 15/26 days basic per year). Reads like a comp-accounting workbook.
The bank-facing view used during home-loan eligibility checks. CTC plus employer's true cost (EPF match, gratuity accrual, employer NPS, insurance) stacked at the top. Net monthly clearly stated. Employer letterhead prominent. Lifetime potential income if requested.
Compliance guardrails
A CTC that maximises take-home today by gaming basic salary below 40% looks great until the IT department flags it three quarters later. The studio enforces six guardrails by default — and surfaces a clear warning the moment the structure crosses one of them. Override is possible (the law isn't binary on every line) but never silent.
Convention (not strict law) holds basic at ≥ 40% of gross. Below this, the IT department often re-characterises components — what was "special allowance" might be reclassified as basic for PF / gratuity / bonus purposes, retroactively widening employer liability.
Section 10(13A) caps HRA exemption at 50% of basic (metros: MUM/DEL/KOL/CHE) or 40% (non-metro). Allocating more is allowed in the CTC, but the excess is fully taxable — defeating the purpose of structuring HRA at all.
Gross at exactly ₹21,000 keeps the employee in ESI; ₹21,001 takes them out entirely. Marginal-raise structures should aim for cleanly below or cleanly above — the studio flags structures that land within ₹500 of either side.
An employer can elect capped or uncapped PF — but the election should apply consistently. Mixing capped contributions for some employees and uncapped for others raises audit flags for selective benefit administration.
Tax-exempt reimbursements have caps — meal vouchers (₹50/meal), telephone (against bills), books-and-periodicals (against bills). Allocating more than these limits makes the excess fully taxable and (if not paid against bills) reclassifiable as salary.
Employer's gratuity liability accrues at 15/26 days of basic per year, payable on exit after 5+ years. Most CTC presentations fold this into "employer cost" without showing the actual figure — making true CTC look smaller than it is, and surprising both parties at exit.
The Q&A column
What changes between metros. How to handle joining bonus + RSUs. Whether saved templates persist. The design-side questions — the math-side questions live on the salary calculator page.
Yes — the URL fingerprint encodes the structure in the query string. Bookmark or paste it; the recipient lands on the same structure with the same regime / metro / template inputs. The encoding is lossless and human-readable, so you can sanity-check what's encoded before sharing. The candidate can tune their own scenario from there without overwriting yours.
Continue with
The CTC builder authors the design; the salary calculator analyses what it produces; the TDS calculator computes the withholding; the PF/ESI calculator audits the statutory subtractions; the payslip generator renders the monthly stub. All five share one underlying engine — no re-keying between tracks.
Three directions, four allocation patterns, six guardrails. Every component traceable, the take-home preview live, the offer letter ready in PDF + Excel — all from one workspace.