Time to First Million
Income tells you how much. Time to First Million adds how long.
Time to First Million is an indicative metric that expresses the time required to reach $1 million in cumulative gross employment income at the stated Annual Compensation of a position.
The Calculation
$1,000,000 ÷ Annual Compensation = Time to First Million
Where a compensation range is stated, the upper end indicates the shorter time and the lower end the longer time. One Million Dollar Jobs presents the result as a range in years, rounded to one decimal place.
An Example
$220,000–$280,000
Annual Compensation
3.6–4.5 years
Time to First Million
$1,000,000 ÷ $280,000 ≈ 3.6 years
$1,000,000 ÷ $220,000 ≈ 4.5 years
What Counts
Annual Compensation includes:
Base salary: the stated annual base salary, at least $125,000 regardless of bonus or commission.
Target bonus: included when the annual target amount is stated or can be calculated from a stated percentage.
Guaranteed bonus: included only if it recurs annually.
On-target earnings (OTE): the stated annual OTE is used as the total. Base salary is not added again. Commission is not estimated without a stated OTE.
Not included: maximum bonuses, sign-on bonuses, one-time or first-year-only payments, and equity.
Time to First Million assumes that Annual Compensation remains unchanged each year. Where a target bonus or OTE is included, it also assumes that the stated targets are met.
What It Does Not Measure
Time to First Million does not measure personal wealth, savings or investment performance. It does not account for taxes, equity, inflation or future changes in compensation.
It is not an individual earnings forecast.