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I think that's becoming less of a norm. More and more companies seem to be moving to 4-year vesting, distributed annually.

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I'm a vocal defender of vesting and cliffs, but even I think you shouldn't take a job somewhere where you vest in annual chunks after your cliff.

It's pretty normal though.

What does it cost to transfer stock in the US in a privately held company? Here in Europe it can be up to ~$1K to transfer stock in a GMBH or BV, other countries more or less depending on the local situation regarding notary public roles and rates. In a public company it is dirt cheap but this is prior to IPO.

That + accelerated vesting in case of wrongful termination or termination without cause can be reason enough to batch share vesting events.

There is no stock transfer or fees associated with the typical startup vesting schedule in the US. It's just written as an algorithm in legal documents like "...one fourth of which will vest after twelve months and blah blah blah..." The exercising is more paperwork on top of the vesting.

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