What is Counteroffer?

A counteroffer is your current employer's attempt to keep you after you resign or reveal an outside offer, usually money, sometimes a promotion, a new project, or promises about what will change. Deciding well means separating the flattering from the structural. A raise fixes a pay problem; it does not fix a manager, a ceiling, a culture, or a direction you have stopped believing in, so return to the reasons you started looking and ask which of them the counter actually addresses. Weigh what accepting costs on both sides too: the new employer you would be burning, and the awkward knowledge that it took a resignation letter to be valued at market. Folklore statistics about how many counter-acceptors leave within a year circulate widely without sources, so ignore them and reason from your own case instead. If you would genuinely stay for the right change, the stronger move is raising it before you ever resign; using outside offers purely as leverage is a play that tends to work at most once.