Salary Negotiation Email Templates for Four Real Situations

A good salary negotiation email does three things in under 200 words: names a specific number or ask, gives one concrete reason tied to the role or a competing offer, and stays warm enough that the recruiter wants to keep negotiating rather than close the file. Most Indian offer negotiations happen over email rather than on a call precisely because email leaves a written record both sides can point back to — which is also why what you type matters more than what you'd say out loud. Below are four ready-to-adapt templates for the situations that come up most often after an offer lands: countering a number that's too low, asking for a few extra days to decide, negotiating after a verbal offer with nothing on paper yet, and asking HR to reissue a revised offer letter once new terms are agreed.

When to send a salary negotiation email (and when to just call)

Use email as your default, especially early in your career. It gives you time to phrase the number correctly, it creates a paper trail if there's ever a dispute about what was promised, and it lets the recruiter forward your note internally without having to summarise a call. The one time a call beats email is when the recruiter explicitly asks for one or when the number is genuinely close and a quick conversation could settle it faster than three email rounds. Even then, send a short follow-up email afterward confirming what was agreed — recruiters move between multiple candidates a day and verbal commitments get misremembered. Our guide on how to negotiate salary covers the broader strategy; this piece is about the exact words to use once you're ready to write.

Template 1: Countering a low offer

Use this when a written offer has landed and the number is below what you expected, based on the role, your interviews, or a competing offer.

Subject: Offer for [Role] — following up on compensation

Hi [Recruiter name],

Thank you for sending the offer for [Role] at [Company]. I'm genuinely looking forward to the possibility of joining the team.

Before I confirm, I wanted to flag the compensation. Based on [the market range for this role / a competing offer I currently have / the scope discussed across interviews], I was expecting the CTC to be closer to ₹[X] LPA rather than the ₹[Y] LPA in the offer. Given [one concrete reason — a specific skill, a certification, the exact scope of the role], I'd like to understand if there's room to revise this.

I'm keen to make this work and happy to discuss further on a call if that's easier.

Best regards,

[Your name]

Template 2: Asking for time to decide

Use this when you have the offer but need a few more days — for a competing process to close, or simply to think it through — without risking the offer being pulled.

Subject: Requesting a short extension to respond to the offer

Hi [Recruiter name],

Thank you for the offer for [Role] — I appreciate you sharing the details ahead of [the deadline mentioned].

I'd like to give this the consideration it deserves before confirming. Could I request until [a specific date, ideally 3–5 working days out] to respond? I have [a pending interview process / a family matter / a decision I need to finalize] that I'd like to close out first.

I'll get back to you by [date] at the latest, and I'm happy to answer any questions in the meantime.

Thanks for your patience,

[Your name]

Template 3: Negotiating after a verbal offer

Use this right after a call where a number was discussed verbally but the formal offer letter hasn't been issued yet — this is your chance to get the right number on paper from the start, rather than negotiating a document that's already been signed off internally.

Subject: Following up on our call — compensation discussion

Hi [Recruiter name],

Thanks for the call earlier and for walking me through the offer for [Role]. I wanted to follow up in writing to confirm what we discussed and raise one point before the formal offer letter is drafted.

We spoke about a CTC of ₹[X] LPA. Given [reason — scope, a competing offer, market benchmarking], I'd like to request ₹[Y] LPA instead. Please let me know if this is something we can settle before the offer letter goes out, so we're aligned on paper from day one.

Looking forward to your response.

Best,

[Your name]

Template 4: Asking for a revised offer letter

Use this once you've verbally agreed on new terms with the recruiter or hiring manager and need the actual document updated before you sign and return it.

Subject: Request for a revised offer letter reflecting the updated terms

Hi [Recruiter name],

Thank you for agreeing to revise the compensation for [Role] to ₹[X] LPA, as discussed on [date/call]. Could you share an updated offer letter reflecting this figure before I sign and return it?

Happy to confirm anything else needed on my end to help this move quickly.

Thanks,

[Your name]

A realistic example: turning a ₹4.2 LPA offer into ₹4.8 LPA

Say you're a final-year engineering graduate with an off-campus offer of ₹4.2 LPA for an associate software engineer role, and a second company — further along in its process but not yet at the offer stage — has indicated it's likely to land around ₹5.5 LPA for a similar role. You don't have that second offer in hand yet, so you can't cite it directly. What you do have is a specific, factual reason: you cleared a technical round that included a live coding round most candidates for this role reportedly struggled with, and the JD explicitly lists a skill (say, a specific framework) that you've used in a shipped project, not just a course.

Using Template 1, the ask becomes concrete: instead of "I was hoping for more," it reads "based on the scope discussed in the technical round and my project experience with [framework], I was expecting the CTC to be closer to ₹4.8 LPA rather than ₹4.2 LPA." That's a defensible, specific number tied to something the interviewer already saw, not an arbitrary jump. Recruiters can push back on a vague "more," but it's harder to push back on a reason that references the actual interview. Whether the company moves to ₹4.8 LPA, meets you partway at ₹4.5 LPA, or holds at ₹4.2 LPA, you've asked in a way that costs you nothing and leaves the relationship intact either way.

What not to put in writing

Email is a record, and HR and hiring managers do occasionally forward these threads internally or refer back to them if there's a dispute later. A few rules worth following:

• Don't issue an ultimatum you're not prepared to act on. "If you don't match this I'll have to decline" only works if you genuinely will decline. Writing it and then accepting anyway weakens your position the next time you negotiate with the same company.
• Don't share your exact current CTC unless you're comfortable with it being verified. Some companies ask for a recent payslip or Form 16 to confirm the number you quoted. If you'd rather not open that door, talk about the market range or a competing offer's number instead of your current salary.
• Don't say "I accept" before the negotiation is actually done. Use language like "I'm reviewing the offer" until every term you care about is settled. Once you've written "I accept," most recruiters will treat the negotiation as closed.
• Don't criticize your current or previous employer's compensation practices. It reads as a complaint rather than a negotiation and adds nothing to your case.
• Don't commit to a start date before compensation and role details are final. A start date is easy to walk back verbally; in writing it can be read as acceptance of everything else too.

A few rules that apply to every template

Rule	Why it matters
Keep it under 200 words	Recruiters are handling several candidates at once; a long email gets skimmed, not read carefully
Anchor on one number, not a range	A range invites the recruiter to settle at the bottom of it
Thank them first, every time	Sets a collaborative tone before you raise the ask
Reply-all only when the process requires it	Looping in extra people without reason can make a simple ask look like an escalation
Proofread the role title, company name and figures	A wrong number in a negotiation email undermines the exact credibility you're trying to build

Context matters too. Campus and off-campus hiring at scale — the kind TCS or Infosys run for thousands of freshers at a time — usually leaves little room to negotiate individual numbers, since the CTC bands are standardised across the batch. Off-campus applications to individual teams, and almost all startup hiring, leave more room, because there's one recruiter or hiring manager making a decision about one candidate rather than a policy applying to a few thousand people at once. Read the situation before you decide how hard to push, and remember that your notice period at a current job is itself a negotiating input the other side will ask about — know the notice period rules in India for your current contract before you commit to a joining date in any of these emails. If you're negotiating a first job and unsure what number is even reasonable to ask for, start from what the role's expected CTC answer should sound like in an interview, since the same benchmarking applies to the number you put in an email.

One statistic worth treating with caution: several recruitment blogs repeat a claim that a majority of candidates accept the first offer they receive without negotiating at all. That number shows up widely but traces back to secondary sources rather than a primary survey we could verify, so treat it as a commonly repeated industry claim rather than a confirmed figure. What is verifiable is simpler: a written offer is rarely a company's absolute final number, and a polite, specific email costs you nothing to send.