How to read a severance package before you sign the release
The number in the first paragraph is almost never the whole offer. Here’s what to check before the clock the company set actually runs out.
A severance offer is the company’s first move in a negotiation, dressed up to look like a formality. The headline number in the first paragraph is designed to be the only thing you remember; everything that actually determines whether the offer is fair or thin sits further down, in language built to be skimmed past under pressure — and pressure is exactly what a short acceptance window creates.
The headline number is one line among several
Weeks of pay is the easiest thing to compare and the least complete part of the offer. Before you weigh it, find four other numbers: how COBRA is handled (subsidized, for how long, or on you from day one), what happens to unvested equity (does separation accelerate anything, or does it all just lapse), whether accrued PTO is paid out, and whether there’s a bonus or commission owed for work already done that the offer is quietly asking you to release along with everything else.
The release is doing more work than the number
Signing a severance agreement almost always means signing a release of claims — you’re giving up the right to sue over anything related to your employment, in exchange for the payment. That trade might be entirely fair. It might also be the company buying its way out of something it knows is a real exposure. The number alone doesn’t tell you which; the specific language of what you’re releasing, and how broad it is, does.
Non-competes and non-solicits often ride along
Severance agreements frequently extend or introduce restrictive covenants — a non-compete or non-solicit clause with its own separate timeline. Enforceability varies sharply by state, and a broad, unenforceable-where-you-live clause can still chill your next job search if you don’t know that. This is worth checking on its own, separately from the money.
The deadline is part of the design
Federal law (the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act) gives employees 40 and over at least 21 days to consider a severance agreement offered individually, and 7 days to revoke after signing — both are floors, not universal timelines for every situation, and the specific window on your document is the one that governs. Whatever the stated window, treat it as the beginning of a negotiation, not a take-it-or-leave-it clock: many of the terms above are more negotiable than the letter implies.
How to use this
Severance Analyzer reads your actual offer against your role, region, and tenure band, flags where a non-compete overreaches for your state, surfaces the COBRA and equity gaps the letter doesn’t spell out, and gives you a calibrated read on what to counter before the window closes. It doesn’t replace an employment lawyer for a genuinely contested exit — and it says so — but it gets you oriented before you’re negotiating from confusion.
The read is built on the same standard as everything else AEQUARA ships: confidence that matches reality, measured in public. See the rest of the tools if a different document is the one you’re facing.