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I'm negotiating a raise at my job (entry-level job; I've been at the company for 1+ years).
For a lot of reasons (primarily my skill set, accomplishments, & performance), I believe that I'm getting severely underpaid.

I did a lot of research: At first, looking online (glassdoor, linkedin, payscale, etc) and then by talking to people. I spoke to 2 current colleagues at my company, 2 former coworkers, a family-friend recruiter in the industry, and a big manager from a different company (again, a friend).
Those people were able to give me solid ranges for what they felt is my competitive market value in my city, especially for those who know what type of work I do on a day-to-day basis.

However, based on non-negotiation conversations that I've had with my manager and with HR, I know that they will likely not believe the numbers I'm hearing (they're majorly higher than what I'm getting now).

I'm at the point where I'm ready to leave the job because of this, but I want to give this December raise conversation my best shot since I do enjoy my job and would like to stay (if I'm compensated better).

My question is: I am fairly certain that HR will hear my salary request and tell me my numbers are totally off-base compared to the company's research. What is a productive way to reply to that?

Is there a productive way to reply?

My goal is to find a response which won't end the the negotiation even after they bring up that argument.

EDIT: This is not a duplicate of this question, which asks about "should I give a range". My question is "how to reply when HR rejects the range".

As with any other salary negotiation, all you can do if they disagree with your expectation is to ask them what their offer is and decide if it is sufficient to keep you there.

My response to them saying those numbers are wrong would be to say that that's the reason I'm bringing this to their attention - their idea of the salary range and my idea of the salary range for this position are apparently at odds.

At the end of the day, you're looking for considerably more than you're getting, and you believe others are able to offer that. You're happy with where you're at, but you'd be foolish to ignore a significantly higher paying position elsewhere.

An example from my own past - There was a point where I was at odds with management over my own salary, having been promoted into a position with a small pay bump over a helpdesk job, where the position itself was 2-3x as much salary elsewhere.

My direct manager kept laying comments down that if I wanted to make any more I would need to get a bachelors degree finished, get more certs, etc, that I wasn't qualified for anything more than I was getting....

A few months later I actually ended up getting an offer somewhere else for 50% more, and I was conflicted. Happy where I was, but couldn't say no to a difference like that.

I texted my manager letting them know I had an offer for X ridiculous salary and I was going to have to take it.

They texted back a minute later saying they'd match it.

At this point... Honestly I had to go to the other place. It felt dishonest to have someone tell me I was at the top end of my pay range, only to flatly reverse when it was time for me to leave... Whereas somewhere else was willing to start me 50% higher as a base and work up from there.

If the answer is that you're at the top of your pay range, it's time to move your career elsewhere. That's them telling you that there's nowhere else for you to move up at that company doing what you're doing (absent a significant promotion or role change), and if you're good at what you do and you're not about to retire, you should be looking for ways to increase your salary either to the range that's normal for your industry, if not increase above average if you've been doing it for a while / have unique skills to that profession that others might not have.

HR will hear my salary request ... and tell me my numbers are totally off-base compared to the company's research. What is a productive way to reply to that?

This really highlights the nature of negotiations. If you get in to talk-talk, unfortunately you lose!

Reasons do not win negotiations.

Is there a productive way to reply?

If you have gone down this road, yes.

Very simply, as briefly as possible, just state examples. So,

"Here on SO jobs for instance, you can see XYZ are offering ABC for a similar role. And here's one - PQR are offering DEF."

That's all you can do.

But understand that of course, the person you're negotiating with will just instantly give you 100 reasons why those "don't count" (wrong city, different size team, blah blah - whatever).

An interesting thing is, I noticed when folks negotiate on house prices they do so in a rational manner. (If you were buying my house and you said 100 and I said 110, and I tried to give you some "reasons" you should pay 110 - you'd just stare through me like I was daft.) A good thing is to think "What language would I use if this was a house price negotiation?"

Anyway the literal answer to your actual question is

• have two or three (don't go overboard with detail) short examples on hand and use those.

Good luck!

As a footnote, in software as a rule you should just dump your first job as soon as possible to start earning money. (The converse of this is, when you're hiring it's really smart to hire "newbies" as you get to rip them off and save a few dollars, until they get wise and leave.) Enjoy!