Rich and poor are relative words.

Ask people whether they are rich and most will say no. Ask them whether they are poor and most will also say no. Almost everyone places themselves somewhere in the middle, whatever they earn.

That is because we judge our pay against the people around us: colleagues, friends, family, the neighbourhood, the feed. It is a small sample, and rarely a representative one. Someone earning twice the national median can feel squeezed in a big city. Someone on a modest salary can be better off than most of the planet without ever thinking of it that way.

This site replaces the impression with a number. You enter your gross annual salary, you guess where you stand, and you see where you actually stand among employees in your country and in the world.

The gap is the interesting part

The distance between your guess and the answer says less about your salary than about the bubble you live in. People who overestimate their position often work in a low wage sector or live somewhere expensive. People who underestimate it are usually surrounded by others who earn even more.

Neither is a judgement. It is just a calibration.

Questions worth asking afterwards

• Is my idea of a normal salary based on the country, or on the ten people I see every day?
• If I am in the top 20%, does my lifestyle, my giving or my sense of security reflect it?
• If I am below the middle, is it my role, my sector, my city or my negotiation?
• How does my country compare with the rest of the world, and what does that change about how I see my own situation?

What the number is not

It is a ranking of salaries, not of wealth. It says nothing about savings, property, inheritance, household income or the cost of living in your city. Two people on the same salary can live very different lives. The number is a starting point for thinking, not a verdict.

Your salary stays with you

The calculation runs entirely in your browser. Your salary is never sent anywhere, never stored, and never appears on the image you share: only your rank does.