Ownership · Illustration only
Illustrative ownership calculator
Try out how a venture's ownership could be divided. Start with the quick example, then use the detailed calculator for several founders, earned portions and other allocations. Every figure is a percentage of one illustrative planning baseline, and everything adds up to exactly 100%.
Quick example
Set a founder allocation and a pool for contributors. Whatever is left stays unallocated, so the total is always exactly 100%.
1 to 10, for the equal-split example.
Quick example result
| Category | % of baseline |
|---|---|
| Founder | 70% |
| Contributor pool (3 contributors) | 20% |
| Unallocated | 10% |
| Total | 100% |
Reconciled: founder + pool + unallocated = exactly 100% (1,000,000 units).
Equal-split example
If the pool were divided equally, each contributor's planning allocation would be:
- 2 × 6.6667%
- 1 × 6.6666%
The pool doesn't divide exactly into whole units of 0.0001%, so the 2 units left over go one each to the first 2 contributors. Nothing is lost or rounded away.
An example, not a recommendation. An equal split is just one way to divide a pool. It is not anyone's entitlement: a real allocation would depend on each person's agreed role and accepted work, and would need a legal agreement.
These are planning percentages. They are not issued shares, an entitlement under any contract, earnings or pay, voting rights or a return or payout. Nothing here asks anyone to work unpaid or promises that a venture will succeed.
Detailed calculator
Several founders, individual contributor maximums with hypothetical earned portions, and an optional allocation to COAB as your own assumption.
Planning model
IllustrativeIllustrative baseline: 1,000,000 units = 100%. Not a dated or legally defined ownership denominator, and model units are not shares.
| Category | % of baseline | Model units |
|---|---|---|
| Founder 1 | 70% | 700,000 units |
| Contributor 1 (maximum) | 10% | 100,000 units |
| Contributor 2 (maximum) | 5% | 50,000 units |
| COAB | 0% | 0 units |
| Unallocated | 15% | 150,000 units |
| Total | 100% | 1,000,000 units |
Reconciled: every category adds up to exactly 100% (1,000,000 units). Unallocated: 15%.
Contributor maximums and earned portions (hypothetical example)
The earned and not-earned figures come from a hypothetical mathematical example: maximum × accepted work, rounded down to a whole unit, with the rest kept as not earned. This is not an approved or contractual earning rule. The earned portion is part of each maximum, so it isn't added to the total again, and nothing is issued or owed.
| # | Maximum | Accepted | Earned | Not earned |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10% | 50% | 5% | 5% |
| 2 | 5% | 0% | 0% | 5% |
How the calculation works
- The illustrative baseline
- 100% is 1,000,000 units of an illustrative baseline used only for this example; one unit is 0.0001 percentage points. It has no date, company, share class or legal status, and it is not a legally defined ownership denominator. A real denominator would have to be defined in legal documents at a stated date, and its figures could be quite different.
- Exact arithmetic and rounding
- Figures are counted in whole units, never approximated. You can enter allocations to at most 4 decimal places; more precise entries are rejected, not rounded. The only rounding is in the hypothetical earning example, where a contributor's earned portion is rounded down to a whole unit and the fraction left over stays in their not-earned part, so the total is unchanged. That rounding is an assumption of the example, not an approved rounding policy.
- Caps
- Each allocation is between 0% and 100%, and all allocations together can't exceed 100%: an excess is rejected rather than scaled down. A contributor's earned portion can never exceed their maximum.
- Earned portions: a hypothetical example
- Earned = maximum × share of agreed work accepted, rounded down, with the rest shown as not earned. This is a hypothetical mathematical example, not an approved or contractual earning rule. How hours or deliverables would count, and what would happen to a portion that isn't earned, are not decided, and there is no standard rate for converting hours into ownership.
- Unallocated
- Whatever isn't allocated to a founder, contributor or COAB is shown as unallocated, so the total is always exactly 100%. Who it might go to later is not decided here.
- Not modelled
- Issued shares, vesting, dilution from later investment (which would ordinarily reduce every percentage), milestone schedules, voting rights, profit distributions and tax.