When you receive an RSU grant at a new job or as a refresher, the accompanying grant letter or equity platform notification contains several fields that matter. Here's what each one means.
Grant Date
This is the date your RSU grant was officially approved. It's important because:
- Your vesting clock starts here (not your start date in all cases).
- The grant-date stock price determines how many shares you receive if the grant was stated in dollars. For example, "$200,000 in RSUs" at a $100 stock price = 2,000 shares granted.
- For accounting and HR purposes, this is when the company records the grant.
Number of Shares (Not Dollar Value)
Your grant letter will typically state a number of shares — not a dollar amount. The share count is fixed at grant. The dollar value at vesting depends on the stock price when your shares actually vest.
Example: You're granted 2,000 shares when the stock is at $100. That's a $200,000 grant at grant-date price. Two years later, the stock is at $120 — so 500 shares vesting that year are worth $60,000 (not the expected $50,000).
Vesting Schedule
This section defines when you receive your shares. It will either state specific vest dates and share counts, or reference a vesting formula (e.g., "25% annually over 4 years").
The three most common schedules are even (25/25/25/25), front-loaded (e.g., 38/32/20/10), and back-loaded (e.g., 5/15/40/40). See the Vesting Schedules guide for what each means.
Cliff Date
The cliff is the first date any shares can vest. Most grants have a 1-year cliff — meaning nothing vests until you've been employed for 12 months. The cliff date is calculated from the grant date (or sometimes your employment start date — check your agreement).
Important: If you leave one day before the cliff, you receive zero shares from that grant — even if you were 11 months and 29 days in.
Double-Trigger vs. Single-Trigger Acceleration
Some grant letters include language about acceleration on acquisition or change of control. This is more common at pre-IPO companies. Single-trigger acceleration means unvested shares vest automatically on acquisition. Double-trigger requires both an acquisition and your termination within a certain window. Most public company RSUs don't include this, but it's worth checking.
What to Do After Reading Your Grant Letter
- Model the grant in the RSU Vesting Calculator to see year-by-year value at different stock prices.
- Check whether the vesting clock starts on your employment date or the actual grant date — these can differ by weeks or months.
- Note when refresher grants are typically issued at your company (often annually at a review cycle).
- If comparing against another offer, use the Compare Job Offers tool with both grants modeled.