Most counter offers fail the one-year test: the money changes, the reasons you looked don't. Take a counter only if your sole reason for leaving was compensation, and the counter fixes it cleanly. If you were leaving over scope, management, growth, or the roadmap, the raise buys the same problems at a higher price — and marks you internally as a retention risk.
When you resign, your employer faces an unbudgeted problem: months of vacancy, recruiting cost, onboarding, and lost context — frequently more than your raise would cost. The counter is triage, produced under duress, priced against replacement cost rather than a considered revaluation of you.
That origin matters for two reasons. First, the underlying assessment of you didn't change on resignation day — so the promotion cadence, the manager, the scope problems all persist. Second, some organizations quietly re-file counter-takers as flight risks: passed over for the sensitive project, second in line for the next promotion, first on the list when cuts come. Not universal, but common enough to price in.
Before the counter conversation happens, write down — actually write — why you started looking. Money alone? A clean counter solves it, and staying can be rational: you keep your network, your context, and skip new-job risk. Anything else on the list — the manager, the ceiling, the strategy, the commute, the technology — and ask whether a raise changes that item at all.
Then run the test: a year from now, with the raise normalized into your baseline, is each item on that list better, the same, or worse? For most leavers the honest answer is "the same", which is why the folk wisdom that counter-takers leave within a year, whatever the true rate, matches so many people's observed experience: the offer treated the symptom that was easiest to pay for.
If you've decided to leave, don't negotiate — decline warmly and finally: "I really appreciate it, and this isn't about money; I've committed to the new role. My priority now is a clean handover." Entertaining a counter you'll refuse burns goodwill in both directions and delays your notice period's real work.
If you'd genuinely stay for the right terms, name them precisely — number, scope, title, timeline — and get the result in writing before you withdraw your resignation. A verbal "we'll sort the promotion out next cycle" is the most defaulted-on contract in corporate life. And tell the other company the truth promptly if you're staying; reneging late poisons a relationship you may want in three years.
When compensation was genuinely your only reason for looking, the counter fixes it fully, and you'd otherwise happily stay. Get the terms in writing. If your list included management, growth, or strategy, the raise fixes none of it.
Sometimes. Some managers move on professionally; others quietly re-classify counter-takers as flight risks — affecting promotions, sensitive projects, and layoff lists. You know your management's maturity better than any rule of thumb does.
Warmly and finally: thank them, state the decision isn't about money, confirm your commitment to the new role, and pivot to handover planning. Don't negotiate a counter you won't take — it burns goodwill and stalls your notice period.
Whatever you decide, keep the resume that got you the outside offer current — score it free so your leverage never goes stale.
