Built because
nobody would
give me a
straight answer.
Why this exists
This started as a student's spreadsheet. I was finishing my degree, looking at jobs abroad, and I could not get a straight answer to a simple question: if I move there, am I better off?
The information existed, but it was scattered across tax authorities, rental sites, immigration pages, graduate surveys and forum threads, each in a different currency, a different year and a different language. Working out the ins and outs of one city took an entire evening. Comparing three of them properly took a week, and by then the numbers had moved.
That is a ridiculous amount of effort to make one of the biggest decisions of your early career. So the spreadsheet became this: everything a graduate actually needs to judge a move, gathered in one place, with the source next to every figure so you can check the work yourself.
Who it's for
graduates · early careerUndergraduates choosing where a degree can take them. Final-year students weighing two offers in two countries. Master's graduates deciding whether the job at home is worth it. And early-career professionals three years in, wondering whether the city they landed in is quietly costing them their twenties.
What you get
98 cities · 149 fieldsOne place, not twenty tabs
Salary, effective tax, rent, groceries, transport, job odds, visa route, language rules and cheapest areas, for every city, on one screen.
Every number carries its source
National statistics offices, graduate outcome surveys, PwC tax summaries and Numbeo cost data. If we could not find a real source, we say so instead of inventing one.
Take-home, not headline pay
Gross salary means nothing across borders. We apply the effective tax rate a graduate actually pays, then subtract what living there actually costs.
The odds of getting hired
A great salary you never earn is worthless, so every ranking is weighted by national graduate employment, your subject's own outcomes and local unemployment.
The whole career, not the first payslip
Starting, mid-career and retirement-age pay, bonus as well as base, lifetime earnings, and an AI forecast of where your own salary lands in five years.
The move itself
Cheapest liveable areas in each city, visa and work-permit routes, processing times and language requirements, the admin nobody warns you about.
What it costs
Settle is free for one city at a time, in full, across all 149 degree fields, with every source linked. Settle Pro costs six euro a month and opens all 98 cities ranked for your degree, four side by side, the career path and lifetime earnings, the relocation plan with visa timelines and language rules, and the five-year salary forecast. If you are deciding this week rather than this year, a fifteen euro one-week pass gives you the same thing with nothing to cancel.
No adverts and no selling your data. Subscriptions pay for the research, and there is a thirty-day money-back guarantee if it does not help.
The honest bit
Estimates are estimates. Rents move, tax rules change, and your offer is not the national average. Everything here is an informed starting point built on published data, not financial or immigration advice, but it will get you to the right shortlist in ten minutes instead of a fortnight.