ABA compensation survey price for member and non-member banks
The ABA Compensation & Benefits Survey Report costs $760 for American Bankers Association members and $5,000 for non-members. Members that complete both sections of the survey get it free, and non-members that participate get 50 percent off, so the realistic prices are $0, $760, $2,500 or $5,000 depending on which bank you are.
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The ABA report is the best-known bank pay survey in the country, and its price list is short. What makes it confusing is that the same PDF sells for anything from nothing to $5,000, and the difference has almost nothing to do with the report. It depends on two facts about your bank: whether you belong to ABA, and whether someone in HR fills in the questionnaire when it opens.
The four prices of the same report
Every figure below is from ABA's own survey page for the 2025 edition, which was published on October 28, 2025. The national report, the four regional reports and the Tennessee state report (run with the Tennessee Bankers Association) are all listed at the same two prices.
| Your bank | Does not participate | Participates |
|---|---|---|
| ABA member | $760 | $0 if both sections are completed |
| Non-member | $5,000 | $2,500 (50 percent off) |
| Tennessee Bankers Association member | Coupon code, amount not published | Further discount, amount not published |
ABA says members save 85 percent, which is just $760 against $5,000. The report is sold online only, and the purchase is a download of the full PDF with both the salary and the benefits sections. For anything not on the page, including the Tennessee coupon, ABA points buyers to its compensation and benefits team by email or at 1-800-BANKERS.
What the sample looks like before you pay for it
The 2025 national report draws on 514 banks and covers 250 job positions, grouped by region, ownership type and asset size. ABA publishes the make-up of that sample, and it is worth reading before a non-member spends $5,000, because it tells you how many of your peers are actually in the numbers.
| Headquarters region | Share of sample | About this many banks |
|---|---|---|
| Midwest | 37.0% | 190 |
| Southeast | 29.6% | 152 |
| South Central | 14.8% | 76 |
| Northeast | 12.1% | 62 |
| Northwest | 6.6% | 34 |
The bank counts are our arithmetic from ABA's percentages, rounded. A Midwest bank is buying a report where roughly 190 regional peers stand behind each number. A bank in the Northwest gets about 34, before the data is split again by asset size and by job, and many senior or specialist positions will have only a handful of matches in that cell. ABA flags this itself: regional and state reports may be based on small sample sizes.
Ownership is skewed too. 87.2 percent of respondents are stock owned and only 0.8 percent are mutual holding companies; 84.2 percent are commercial banks and 14.6 percent savings banks. A mutual savings bank looking for peers that look like it will find few of them here.
Then there is timing. The 2025 report's headline is that banks raised base salaries by an average of 4.2 percent in the twelve months to December 31, 2024. A bank buying it in late 2026 is setting next year's ranges from pay decisions made two years earlier. That is normal for any annual survey, and it is exactly why most banks keep a current source for the roles they post every month.
Three banks working out the price
A $600 million ABA member bank in Iowa. It sits in the biggest regional group in the sample, so the national and Midwest numbers are well populated. HR completes both sections when the survey opens and the report costs nothing. This is the bank the ABA survey is designed for, and there is no reason to buy anything else for the core structure.
A $250 million non-member bank in Pennsylvania. Cold, the national report is $5,000. As a participant it is $2,500, and the Northeast cut has around 62 banks before any asset-size split. The same bank can participate in the ICBA report for $950 and buy the Blanchard national report for $1,100: $2,050 for two national sources, still less than the ABA participant price on its own. Adding Blanchard's $750 director survey brings it to $2,800.
A $1.2 billion ABA member bank in Washington state. The member price is fine at $760, but the Northwest group is the smallest in the sample. A regional survey built for that market, such as Milliman's Northwest financial industry survey at $970 for participants, adds the local depth ABA cannot. And because Washington requires a wage scale in every posting at 15 or more employees, the bank still needs a current range for each teller and loan assistant ad.
Every one of those alternatives, with publisher, sample size and what it covers, is compared on our bank compensation survey page, along with state bankers association prices from $225. Credit unions should look at the separate credit union salary survey comparison instead.
Is the ABA compensation survey worth $5,000?
For a member that participates, it is the best deal in bank pay data, because it is free. For a member that does not, $760 is a fair price for 250 positions and the board chair retainer data. For a non-member, $5,000 is hard to defend: you can buy two national bank surveys and a director survey for $2,800, and your state association survey will usually be closer to the bank across the street than any national report.
The compliance roles are where the choice matters most. Federal May 2025 data puts the median compliance officer in the credit sector at $83,650, and nearly a quarter of those officers work at nondepository lenders that pay them less, so your BSA officer is most likely to be hired away by another bank. A survey with real asset-size peers earns its price on that one role. And if a second compliance hire is not in this year's budget, it is worth looking at a tool that monitors regulatory changes and tracks each obligation so the one officer you have is not doing it from a spreadsheet.
What no annual bank survey gives you
A current range for one job in one city. The ABA report, like ICBA, Blanchard and every state survey, is built once a year to set a structure. A posting law asks for something different: a good faith range for the job you are advertising, in the place it is done, when you post it. The state rules are on salary ranges in job postings, and the method for turning survey percentiles into grades is in how to create salary bands.
WageList covers that gap. Pick the role and the metro and you get a band and a range you can paste into the ad, from the latest federal wage data with the source and date attached, for tellers, universal bankers, credit analysts and every back-office role. Plans start at $99 a month or $588 a year on the pricing page, which is less than a non-member pays for one regional ABA report.
Sources: American Bankers Association, Compensation & Benefits Survey page for the 2025 report (prices, participation terms, sample composition and highlights); BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025; product pages for ICBA, Blanchard and Milliman as compared on our bank survey page. Confirm current pricing with ABA before you order.