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How to Negotiate a Severance Package

Every other ask on this site — a rise, a promotion, training budget, remote days, more time, a lighter load — is made to somebody who expects to keep working with you, and is decided on goodwill. This one isn’t. The employment is ending, and money above whatever you’re already owed is being paid for one thing: your signature on a release. That makes this a price, not an appeal — and appeals, however fair, get answered with sympathy and no movement. You get the five things to do before you reply at all, a message under 180 words that’s safe to forward to a manager, payroll or a lawyer, the four replies you’ll need — including “it’s final, it’s the same for everyone” — and the five questions to have answered before you sign. It never coaches you to sign in the room, and never coaches refusing or letting a deadline pass either. It never threatens a claim, because that turns a transaction they want closed into a dispute. And it will never tell you what a clause means: this is not legal, financial or tax advice.

Sample severance response

Generated for: Operations manager, 4 years — told on Monday the role is going, offer letter Tuesday with one figure and a Friday deadline, notice mentioned, accrued leave not mentioned, options vesting next quarter unaddressed, nothing signed, reference not discussed

What you are actually being offered — The figure in the letter is not a gift and it is not compensation for the decision. Money above whatever you are already owed is being paid for one thing: your signature on a release. So the first read of that document is not for the number, it is for what it asks you to give up. It is also very likely not one thing — pay to your leaving date, [accrued leave], [expenses] and [anything already earned] are money you were owed anyway, and counting those as part of the offer means negotiating against a total that was never on the table. Nothing here is legal, financial or tax advice, and the document itself needs somebody independent to read it.

The real one is written against what you have actually been offered, what is already owed inside it, and which terms matter most to you. The first one is free — no card. After that, $9.99 for a single credit or $49.99 for ten.

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Describe it, don’t price it — and you don’t have to put a figure here at all. What matters is the shape: whether it’s in writing, whether there’s a deadline on it, and what’s bundled inside the number. Packages presented as one amount very often contain money you’re already owed — pay to your leaving date, accrued leave, expenses, a bonus already earned — and that part isn’t a payment for anything. Negotiating against a total that was never on the table is one of the most common ways this goes wrong. Leave it blank and it’s written generically.

Used as a checkable fact, never as an argument. Nothing here will claim you’re owed more because you gave them years — that’s an appeal, and appeals get sympathy instead of movement. Length of service does matter to what’s owedand to what’s unvested or accrued, which is a different thing entirely, and that’s all it’s used for.

These are not the same conversation. They want me to sign today gets the one sentence to say aloud that buys you time without refusing anything and without accusing anybody. Nothing in writing yetis the only window where the shape of the offer is still being decided rather than defended — once a figure is written down and approved, moving it costs somebody an explanation. And I’ve already signedis deliberately not an attempt to unpick it: it goes straight to what’s still open and routinely left behind — final pay, leave, expenses, the reference, an equity or benefit window, your copies of everything.

This decides which section gets written. Improve the terms that aren’t cashis the one people skip and usually shouldn’t: the cash line is budgeted, approved and precedent-setting across every other exit, which is exactly why it’s the hardest thing in the package to move. The leaving date, what a reference says and who gives it, the wording of the internal announcement, a benefit or equity window, equipment, a waiver of something you’d owe back — those cost them little and move far more often. And work out what I’m being asked to sign is the correct first step, not a delay; asking commits you to nothing.

Four things carry this box, and how the decision felt is not one of them. What’s already owed— notice, accrued leave, expenses, a bonus earned — because that part isn’t a payment for anything and shouldn’t be counted as one. What’s unvested or accrued, which has a date attached and is the thing most often lost in silence. What’s been said and by whom, and whether it’s in writing. And what you’ve signed, including anything you signed years ago. We never invent a figure, a date, a deadline, a clause or an entitlement, so anything you don’t supply comes back as a bracketed placeholder. Refer to people by role, no names. Don’t paste the whole agreement — this page won’t interpret it, and that’s what an independent adviser is for.

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Also explore:

Exit Interview: What to Say →“Why Were You Laid Off?” →Responding to a PIP →Responding to a Counteroffer →