I don’t doubt what you’re saying and it may work out sometimes. But I’ve also seen someone accept an offer and his boss (my equal) give him lower than normal raises the next 3 years. The bosses comments during our annual performance calibration and merit increase discussions was that this associate already makes more than others in his pay grade so he taking some of his merit increase and giving it to others on his team to help “level” pay.

>There are circumstances when it can make sense.

Except...there isn't really. If you're unhappy enough to entertain accepting another offer, be that for money or other reasons, you'll be unhappy again in that same role eventually. Accepting a counter-offer at best simply notifies the current employer you're willing to leave when something better comes along (and why would they bother investing more company resources on an employee who is now known to be looking to leave) and at worst gives them time to find your replacement on their terms.

I've seen this scenario play out many times, all roughly the same outcome, many times in my career.

Hi, many time exec here.

The answer is you quit. Underpaid people don’t get fixed, basically ever. Out of band raises are politically costly, and in situations where you’re significantly underpaid you will never get trued up vs market.

You go to the market and get the best offer you can and then you just quit.

I knew what my friend/colleague was offered in the counter offer. I walked in to my bosses office on Monday morning (counter offer was made on Friday late afternoon) and told my boss “so I guess the only way to get a decent raise around here is to start interviewing elsewhere?” He knew exactly what I was referring to and asked to me give him until Wednesday to make a decision. Wednesday morning, me and two others received pay raises consistent with the guy who got the first counter offer. The one counter offer ended costing them 4 times more.

Yes, in my experience, exactly this. I have done this a couple times. The first time, I scheduled a meeting with my boss about a month before I knew they would be having annual raise discussions and told her I loved my job and needed to make more money. Also came prepared with examples of ways I've gone above and beyond. Did the same a year later with a new boss at my annual review (our performance reviews are at the end of the year and they don't make new budget decisions until after the first of the year, so it was strategic), gave examples of my great performance and directly asked to be considered for a larger pay increase. YMMV, obviously, but second boss told me over drinks that I was like a case study in asking for raises. Got around 12% + okay bonus each time. I work in admin/operations for a large law firm.

Edit to add: beforehand, my therapist recommended I look at it as a request, not a demand. It made a world of difference in how I approached the conversation.

I would suggest asking for a meeting to discuss your career path and growth at the company. In the meeting you should state that you feel that you're offering a lot of value to the team, with examples and are happy with your role and the company but want to make sure that your career and compensation continues to advance. They should be able to give a definitive timeline for pay evaluations or promotion decisions. If they're not willing to do that, then you're probably not going to have much luck.

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If you want to outright ask for more money immediately, you are putting yourself out there a bit and might want to be prepared to look elsewhere. If you just take the advancement approach, it's a more subtle way to state you're not satisfied with current pay.