Several conditions are known for a self-inversive polynomial that ascertain the location of its roots, and we present a framework for comparison of those conditions. We associate a parametric family of polynomials p α to each such polynomial p, and define (p), (p) to be the sharp threshold values of α that guarantee that, for all larger values of the parameter, p α has, respectively, all roots in the unit circle and all roots interlacing the roots of unity of the same degree. Interlacing implies circle rootedness, hence (p) ≥ (p), and this inequality is often used for showing circle rootedness. Both (p) and (p) turn out to be semi-algebraic functions of the coefficients of p, and some useful bounds are also presented, entailing several known results about roots in the circle. The study of (p) leads to a rich classification of real selfinversive polynomials of each degree, organizing them into a complete polyhedral fan. We have a close look at the class of polynomials for which (p) = (p), whereas in general the quotient (p) (p) is shown to be unbounded as the degree grows. Several examples and open questions are presented.