Salary midpoint calculator: midpoint salary, midpoint pay and the midpoint of a salary range
The salary midpoint is the minimum plus the maximum divided by two. A grade running from $80,000 to $104,000 has a midpoint of $92,000 and a range spread of 30 percent. Run it the other way and a $92,000 midpoint at a 30 percent spread gives you exactly that minimum and maximum back, which is how pay grades are actually built.
Use the calculator for a single grade, then read on for what the largest published salary structure in the United States really does with spread, overlap and midpoint progression. The three numbers are not independent choices, and the arithmetic that links them is in section 03.
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Salary midpoint calculator
Midpoint salary
$92,000
Minimum
$80,000
Maximum
$104,000
First quartile
$86,000
Third quartile
$98,000
Range spread
30.0%
Compa ratio
95.7%
Where that salary sits
Second quartile: developing, approaching full proficiency
Want the midpoint priced from real market data?
Build a bandBase salary only. If your structure publishes its own midpoint, enter that rather than the arithmetic middle of the minimum and maximum, because deliberately skewed grades are common above the manager level.
The salary midpoint formula, forwards and backwards
Most people meet the midpoint formula in its easy direction: you already have a range, and you want the number in the middle of it. That version is trivial. The direction that actually matters when you are building pay grades is the reverse one, because a well-constructed grade is not a range you found a middle in. It is a midpoint you decided on first, with a minimum and a maximum placed around it.
The two formulas
midpoint = (minimum + maximum) / 2
minimum = 2 x midpoint / (2 + spread)
maximum = minimum x (1 + spread)
Spread is expressed as a decimal here, so 30 percent is 0.30. A $92,000 midpoint at a 0.30 spread gives a minimum of 184,000 / 2.30, which is $80,000, and a maximum of $104,000.
The second formula is the one that goes wrong in spreadsheets. The instinct is to take half the spread and swing it either side of the midpoint: 30 percent spread, so midpoint minus 15 percent and midpoint plus 15 percent. On a $92,000 midpoint that gives $78,200 to $105,800, and the spread of that range is not 30 percent. It is 35.3 percent, because spread is measured against the minimum and you just measured against the midpoint. The gap widens as the spread grows, so a structure built that way drifts further from its intended design at every senior grade.
Done correctly the range is still symmetric in dollars, just not in the percentage you started from. A $92,000 midpoint at 30 percent runs $80,000 to $104,000, which is $12,000 either side, or 13.0 percent of the midpoint rather than 15 percent. That 2 percentage point difference is $1,800 on every minimum in the grade, and it is the sort of error that only surfaces when somebody compares two offers.
One more distinction is worth fixing early, because it decides whether your structure survives contact with a pay transparency law. The midpoint is a statement about the market. The average salary in the grade is a statement about your hiring history. They are frequently far apart, and when a company sets midpoints from its own averages it simply encodes whatever underpayment it already has into the structure that is supposed to fix it.
Three terms, kept straight
- Midpoint
- Competitive market pay for a fully proficient person in the grade. A decision, fixed until you reprice.
- Range spread
- Maximum over minimum, minus one. How much room the grade gives you from entry to ceiling.
- Midpoint progression
- The gap from one grade midpoint to the next. Sets how many grades you need to cover a career.
Pay against the midpoint is the compa ratio. Pay against the width of the grade is range penetration.
What the largest published pay structure in the United States actually does
Almost every article about salary midpoints repeats the same unsourced ranges: spread of 30 to 50 percent, progression of 10 to 15 percent, overlap of 40 to 50 percent. Those numbers come from consulting practice that nobody publishes. There is one large American salary structure whose every grade and step is published in full, so instead of repeating the rules of thumb, here is what happens when you measure them.
Salary Table 2026-GS, the federal General Schedule effective January 2026, covers roughly one and a half million civilian employees across fifteen grades and ten steps. Step 1 is the grade minimum, step 10 is the grade maximum. Everything in the table below is computed from those two published rates.
| Grade | Minimum | Maximum | Midpoint | Spread | Progression | Overlap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GS-1 | $22,584 | $28,248 | $25,416 | 25.1% | n/a | n/a |
| GS-2 | $25,393 | $31,953 | $28,673 | 25.8% | 12.8% | 50.4% |
| GS-3 | $27,708 | $36,024 | $31,866 | 30.0% | 11.1% | 64.7% |
| GS-4 | $31,103 | $40,436 | $35,770 | 30.0% | 12.3% | 59.2% |
| GS-5 | $34,799 | $45,239 | $40,019 | 30.0% | 11.9% | 60.4% |
| GS-6 | $38,791 | $50,428 | $44,610 | 30.0% | 11.5% | 61.8% |
| GS-7 | $43,106 | $56,039 | $49,573 | 30.0% | 11.1% | 62.9% |
| GS-8 | $47,738 | $62,057 | $54,898 | 30.0% | 10.7% | 64.2% |
| GS-9 | $52,727 | $68,549 | $60,638 | 30.0% | 10.5% | 65.2% |
| GS-10 | $58,064 | $75,479 | $66,772 | 30.0% | 10.1% | 66.3% |
| GS-11 | $63,795 | $82,938 | $73,367 | 30.0% | 9.9% | 67.1% |
| GS-12 | $76,463 | $99,404 | $87,934 | 30.0% | 19.9% | 33.8% |
| GS-13 | $90,925 | $118,204 | $104,565 | 30.0% | 18.9% | 37.0% |
| GS-14 | $107,446 | $139,684 | $123,565 | 30.0% | 18.2% | 39.4% |
| GS-15 | $126,384 | $164,301 | $145,343 | 30.0% | 17.6% | 41.3% |
Minimum is step 1 and maximum is step 10 from Salary Table 2026-GS, US Office of Personnel Management, effective January 2026. Midpoint, spread, progression and overlap computed by Wagelist from those published rates. Progression and overlap are measured against the grade above the previous row.
Finding 1
30.0% at every grade
GS-3 through GS-15 all run a spread of 30.00 percent, from a $27,708 clerical grade to a $164,301 senior grade. The common advice that spread should widen as jobs get more senior is not what this structure does. Only GS-1 and GS-2, which have irregular step amounts, differ at 25.1 and 25.8 percent.
Finding 2
The break at GS-11
Progression drifts down from 12.8 percent to 9.9 percent through the support grades, then jumps to 19.9 percent into GS-12 and settles near 18 percent above it. The structure has one deliberate step change where professional work begins, and it is twice the size of the ordinary gap.
Finding 3
Nobody is paid the midpoint
GS-13 has a midpoint of $104,564.50, which falls between step 5 at $103,049 and step 6 at $106,080. With an even number of steps the midpoint is never an actual rate of pay. It is a reference point for designing and pricing the grade, not a salary anyone receives.
The overlap column is the one that surprises people. Between GS-3 and GS-11 adjacent grades overlap by 59 to 67 percent, which means two thirds of one grade sits inside the grade below it. A GS-13 at step 1 earns $90,925, less than a GS-12 at step 10 on $99,404. That is not a flaw. Heavy overlap is what lets a long-tenured specialist stay well paid without being promoted into work they do not want, and it is the practical answer to the pay compression complaint that shows up whenever grades are built too far apart.
Spread, progression and overlap are one decision, not three
Compensation guidance normally presents range spread, midpoint progression and grade overlap as three separate design choices, each with its own recommended range. They are not separate. Once you fix two of them, the third is already decided, and the arithmetic is short enough to check by hand.
Take a grade with minimum m and spread S, so the maximum is m times (1 + S). Put the next grade's minimum at m times (1 + P), where P is the midpoint progression. Because both grades have the same spread, the progression between minimums is also the progression between midpoints. Overlap is the part of the lower grade that the upper grade covers: the lower maximum minus the upper minimum, over the width of the lower grade. Substitute and the m cancels out.
The relationship
progression = spread x (1 - overlap)
overlap = 1 - (progression / spread)
Check it against the published table above. GS-14 to GS-15 has a 30 percent spread and a 17.62 percent progression. One minus 0.1762 divided by 0.30 is 0.413, and the measured overlap is 41.3 percent. GS-11 to GS-12: one minus 0.1986 over 0.30 is 0.338, against a measured 33.8 percent.
This is why the standard rules of thumb quietly conflict. A 40 percent spread with a 50 percent overlap forces a 20 percent progression, which is far outside the 10 to 15 percent that the same guidance recommends. If you want progression near 12 percent and spread near 40 percent, you are choosing a 70 percent overlap whether you meant to or not. Decide the two you care about and read the third off the formula rather than arguing about all three.
Which two you fix depends on the company. If your problem is that people hit the top of their grade and leave, widen the spread. If your problem is that a promotion produces a raise too small to feel like one, raise the progression, which narrows the overlap and makes each grade a genuine step up. Most companies under 200 employees do better with fewer grades and generous overlap, because they have more distinct jobs than they have distinct pay levels.
Grade ladder builder
Implied midpoint progression
15.0%
| Grade | Min | Midpoint | Max |
|---|---|---|---|
| G1 | $52,174 | $60,000 | $67,826 |
Every grade inherits the same spread, so the ladder compounds at the implied progression. The structure is only as good as the grade 1 midpoint you feed it, which is the part that has to come from market data rather than from a guess.
Where the midpoint number itself should come from
Everything above is arithmetic, and arithmetic is the easy half. The midpoint is the only input that carries real risk, because it is the number a candidate compares to a job board, a tenured employee compares to a new hire, and in a growing list of states a posted salary range has to be built from in good faith.
A defensible midpoint has three properties. It is tied to a named market definition, so you can say which employers, which geography and which job you priced against. It is tied to a stated position against that market, usually the median or slightly above it. And it is dated, so you know when it was last refreshed and by how much.
Public federal wage data gives you all three for free, which is what Wagelist builds bands from. The wage estimates behind it are documented, national and metro level, and published on a known schedule, so a range built from them can be explained to an employee, an auditor or a state agency without producing a survey invoice. The limits are real and worth knowing before you rely on it, which is why they are set out in full on the page about public BLS salary data.
Four ways midpoints go wrong
- Averaging your own people. The midpoint becomes a description of your hiring history. Any existing underpayment is now policy.
- Pricing from job ads. Posted ranges are wide by design and often cover several levels. Reading a midpoint out of them imports somebody else's leveling.
- One national number for every location. Fine until you hire in a high-cost metro, then every band in that office is wrong at once. Decide the geography rule before you need it.
- Never aging the structure. Midpoints do not decay visibly. They just stop matching the market until the compa ratios across a whole grade quietly drift above 100 percent and new hires cost more than tenured staff.
Stop guessing the midpoint
Price a real US role against public federal wage data and get a minimum, midpoint and maximum you can defend line by line.
What the midpoint is actually used for once you have it
Pricing an offer
Most external hires land between the minimum and the midpoint, because the midpoint describes someone already proficient in the job. Offering at the midpoint to a candidate who needs six months to get there is how the next person in the grade ends up underpaid relative to them.
Posting a compliant range
A growing number of states require a good faith pay range in the job ad. A grade built outward from a documented midpoint gives you a range with a reason behind it, which is exactly what posting salary ranges in a job ad asks you to produce.
Running a merit cycle
Compa ratio against the midpoint is the standard second axis of a merit matrix, so that the same rating produces a larger increase low in the grade than high in it. That is what stops the budget flowing to people already above market.
Finding compression
Compression shows up as a tenured employee with a lower compa ratio than the person they trained. You cannot see it at all without midpoints, because raw salaries across different jobs are not comparable to each other.
Salary midpoint questions
What is the salary midpoint formula?
Salary midpoint equals the range minimum plus the range maximum, divided by two. A grade running from $80,000 to $104,000 has a midpoint of $92,000. Going the other way, from a midpoint and a spread, the minimum is two times the midpoint divided by two plus the spread, and the maximum is that minimum times one plus the spread.
What does salary midpoint mean?
The salary midpoint is the pay rate your structure treats as fully competitive market pay for a job, and it is the anchor the rest of the grade is built around. It is a decision about where you want to sit against the market, not an average of what your current employees happen to earn.
What is midpoint pay?
Midpoint pay is the salary at the center of a pay grade, the rate a fully proficient employee in that grade is expected to reach. People below it are usually still building competence in the role. People well above it have generally outgrown the grade and belong in the next one.
How do you calculate the midpoint of a salary range?
Add the minimum and the maximum and divide by two. For a range of $63,795 to $82,938 the midpoint is $73,366.50. That arithmetic middle only matches your intended market target if the range was built outward from a midpoint in the first place, which is why comp teams set the midpoint first and place the range around it.
What is a salary range minimum, midpoint and maximum?
The minimum is the lowest rate you will pay in the grade, normally a new entrant still learning the job. The midpoint is competitive market pay for someone fully proficient. The maximum is the ceiling. The distance from minimum to maximum, as a percentage of the minimum, is the range spread.
What is salary midpoint progression?
Midpoint progression is the percentage gap between the midpoint of one grade and the midpoint of the grade above. It is not a free choice: progression equals the range spread multiplied by one minus the overlap you want between adjacent grades, so fixing any two of the three settles the third.
Is the salary midpoint the same as the average salary?
No. The midpoint is the center of a designed pay range and stays fixed until you reprice the structure. The average salary is whatever your current employees are paid, and it moves with every hire and raise. Setting midpoints from your own averages locks in whatever pay problems you already have.
Should new hires be paid at the midpoint?
Usually below it. The midpoint describes someone fully proficient in the job, so a new hire who still has to learn your systems typically starts between the minimum and the midpoint. Hiring at or above the midpoint is a deliberate call for a candidate who arrives already performing at that level.
Keep going
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Salary bands
Where the midpoint comes from, and how a band is priced.
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Salary structure design
Grades, levels and how many you actually need.
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Compa ratio calculator
Measure a salary against the midpoint you just set.
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How wide a range should be
Choosing the spread the whole ladder inherits.