A clear vesting schedule from the grant terms
Equity grants are easy to describe in words and easy to get wrong in numbers. This builder takes the total shares, vesting length, cliff, and interval and produces both a plain summary and a month-by-month table that shows precisely how many shares vest at each milestone, so the totals always reconcile to the full grant.
How it works
The grant has a total share count vesting over a number of months, with an initial cliff. On the cliff date, the fraction of time elapsed at the cliff vests in a single block — for a 12-month cliff on a 48-month grant that is 12/48, or 25 percent. After the cliff, the remaining shares are split evenly across the remaining vesting periods (monthly, quarterly, or annually). Because integer share counts rarely divide evenly, each period is rounded and the leftover remainder is added to the final period, guaranteeing the column sums exactly to the total grant. Acceleration clauses are recorded in the summary so the document captures what happens on a change of control.
Worked example
A co-founder receives 1,000,000 shares on a 4-year, 1-year cliff, monthly schedule:
- Months 1–11: 0 shares vest.
- Month 12 (cliff): 250,000 shares vest at once (25% of total).
- Months 13–48 (36 months): 750,000 shares vest at roughly 20,833 per month, with any rounding remainder landing in month 48.
- Cumulative at month 24: 250,000 + (12 × 20,833) = 499,996 shares — approximately half.
- Month 48 (end): 1,000,000 total.
Run this through the builder and compare the cumulative column against expected milestones for fundraising conversations or board reporting.
Key terms to understand before building the schedule
Cliff. The mandatory waiting period before any shares vest. A cliff protects the company from a founder or employee who leaves early collecting a significant stake. One year is the convention; shorter cliffs signal less confidence in retention.
Vesting interval. Monthly is standard for founders and early employees after the cliff. Quarterly vesting is occasionally used but means longer gaps between “earned” milestones — it can matter during acquisition negotiations where the acquirer counts unvested shares.
Single-trigger vs double-trigger acceleration. Single-trigger vests all remaining shares on a change of control alone. Double-trigger requires both a change of control and an involuntary termination (dismissal without cause or resignation for good reason). Acquirers strongly prefer double-trigger because they want the option to retain the team using the unvested portion as a retention incentive. Single-trigger acceleration can reduce your company’s attractiveness to buyers.
83(b) election. In the US, filing an 83(b) election within 30 days of a restricted stock grant means you pay tax on the shares at their value on the grant date rather than on each vesting date. For a founder taking shares at near-zero value, this can prevent a large tax bill later. This tool does not give tax advice — raise this with an accountant immediately on any equity grant.
Using the output in board documents and grant letters
Paste the generated table into a board consent or grant agreement as an exhibit. The running cumulative column makes it easy to verify the schedule at any point in time: pick a date, count the months from grant date, and read off the vested shares. Keep the schedule on file for each grant so you can reconcile the cap table without reconstructing the math from scratch.