Startup compensation benchmarks and salary benchmarks that hold up next to big-tech offers
Startup salary benchmarks answer the founder's hardest hiring question: what a role is worth when you cannot match a big-tech package but must still make a credible, defensible offer. WageList turns public wage data into startup-stage pay bands in minutes.
Build a band for a real seed-stage role on the right, then read how founders use it to size offers and frame equity honestly.
- P25
- $0
- P50 · Median
- $0
- P75
- $0
Suggested posted range
Built from public U.S. BLS OES wage data (May 2025 release), adjusted for market, seniority, company stage and, when you pick one, industry, by the multipliers published in our methodology.
Get bands for your whole team
Get startedCompeting on a seed budget
Your candidate has a screenshot of a Tier-1 offer with a base you cannot pay. You have a 14-month runway and a hiring plan with five names on it. Most founders resolve this with guesswork: a number from a job board, a friend's Series C comp plan, or whatever the last hire accepted. Each guess compounds, and by the time you raise the next round you have a pay structure nobody can explain and at least one painful internal gap.
The honest alternative is a documented band adjusted for stage. Early-stage companies genuinely pay below established-market rates in base salary, and candidates know it. What wins them over is not pretending otherwise but showing the math: here is the market median, here is our stage adjustment, here is where your offer sits in the band, and here is the equity that sits on top. WageList handles the cash band; your cap table handles the rest. Equity is a real part of the package, but it is not an excuse for an indefensible base. Writing those rules down once, before the fifth hire, is what a compensation philosophy is for.
Three offers a startup gets wrong
01 · Founding engineer
A senior engineer joining pre-product. The band answers: what does Senior Software Engineer, Remote US, early startup actually pay in cash, so the equity conversation starts from a real base instead of a vibe.
Band: $131,510 / $170,453 / $211,949
02 · First account executive
Sales hires are where founders most often overpay on base out of fear. The band answers: what a mid-level AE earns at a growth-stage company, so you can structure base plus variable with a straight face.
Band: $56,610 / $77,520 / $98,430 base
03 · First growth marketer
A generalist role with wildly scattered job-board numbers. The band answers: what mid-level growth pays remote at an early-stage company, so you stop anchoring to either an intern rate or a VP rate.
Band: $72,319 / $95,760 / $127,680
Figures are P25 / P50 / P75 base salary from the WageList dataset, derived from public U.S. BLS wage statistics with documented stage and market multipliers. All three depend on calling the level correctly first, which is the job of a job leveling framework once you pass ten people. Startups usually run few, wide levels rather than a grade ladder, so check what that leaves between them with the salary range overlap calculator and read the trade in broadbanding for a company under 200.
The founding engineer offer, worked through
Software engineers benchmark at $103,000 / $133,500 / $166,000 US-national base. Apply the documented senior multiplier (1.28), the Remote US market multiplier (1.05) and the early-startup stage multiplier (0.95):
Offer at P50 with meaningful equity and you have an honest story: below Tier-1 cash, at market for your stage, documented all the way down. That story survives the candidate showing it to a friend, which is the real test. The bottom row is the version that goes public, and the rules on salary ranges in job postings apply to a five-person startup the same way they apply to a public company.
The pay rules a startup picks up between hire 1 and hire 100
Startups grow into compliance obligations one hire at a time, and nobody sends a notice when a line is crossed. The table below lists the pay and hiring rules that switch on by headcount. Note how early the first ones arrive: in four jurisdictions the salary range rule applies from the very first employee, so a seed-stage company posting its first role can already be covered.
| Headcount | What switches on | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1st employee | Salary range in every job posting for roles in Colorado, Washington DC, Maryland or Virginia. The federal exempt salary floor of $684 a week ($35,568 a year) applies to anyone you classify as exempt. | State posting laws; 29 CFR 541.600 |
| 4 employees | New York posting duty, including remote jobs that report to a New York worksite. | N.Y. Labor Law 194-b |
| 10 employees | New Jersey, Vermont and Maine posting duties. | State posting laws |
| 15 employees | California, Washington and Illinois posting duties. California also gives applicants and current employees the pay scale on request. | State posting laws |
| 25 employees | Massachusetts posting duty. Delaware follows above 25 employees from September 2027. | State posting laws |
| 30 employees | Minnesota posting duty. | State posting laws |
| 50 employees | Hawaii posting duty, and applicable large employer status under the ACA once full time plus full time equivalent staff averaged 50 or more in the prior calendar year. | Hawaii law; 26 U.S.C. 4980H |
| 100 employees | Federal WARN Act notice before a mass layoff or plant closing, and annual EEO-1 reporting for private employers. | 29 U.S.C. 2101; EEOC |
Posting thresholds count employees differently from state to state, so read how each state counts before deciding a small team is out. The full state list, with effective dates, is in pay transparency laws by state, and the health coverage line at 50 is worked through in applicable large employer status.
Equity cannot carry an exempt salary
The most expensive startup pay error is not an overpaid engineer. It is the early hire paid a small cash salary plus a generous equity grant and treated as exempt from overtime. Federal rules require an exempt employee to receive at least $684 a week on a salary basis, a predetermined amount every pay period. Options and restricted stock are not salary, so they do nothing for that test however valuable they turn out to be.
Several states set the floor far higher: in California an exempt employee needs at least $70,304 a year in 2026. Fail the test and the role is non-exempt, which means overtime for every hour past 40 going back up to three years in a willful case. The exempt salary threshold by state page has every state figure, and a WageList band shows at a glance whether the cash you can afford clears it before the offer goes out.
Startup salary questions founders ask
How do startups determine salaries?
Most price each role against market data for the same job, level and location, then apply a deliberate stage adjustment and write it into a compensation philosophy. The offer lands at a chosen point in the band, usually near the median for the stage, and equity is presented separately on top rather than used to justify a low base.
Do startups pay less than big companies?
Usually in base salary, yes, and candidates expect it. The gap is a choice you can document, not an accident. Price the role against the full market, apply a stated stage adjustment, and show the candidate where the offer sits in the band. Equity then has to make up the difference in expected value, not the base.
Does equity count toward the exempt salary threshold?
No. To classify someone as exempt, federal rules require a salary of at least $684 a week paid on a salary basis, meaning a predetermined amount every pay period. Stock options and restricted stock are not salary, so a founding hire paid $30,000 in cash plus equity cannot be treated as exempt under federal law.
Do startups have to post salary ranges?
Yes, once the state threshold is met, and some states start at one employee. Colorado, Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia apply at any size, New York at 4, and California, Washington and Illinois at 15. The rule follows where the job is performed, so a remote-first startup can be covered before it has an office.
When should a startup create salary bands?
Before the fifth or sixth hire, and certainly before the first role is posted in a state with a range requirement. At that point offers start to be compared with each other, and every undocumented exception becomes a pay gap someone will notice. One band per role is enough to start, and a ladder follows later.
What you can do today
Today, the free pay band calculator builds a band for around 85 common roles with startup-stage adjustments, no signup required. Every plan saves your bands with the methodology documented, and from Growth up the whole hiring plan sits on one ladder with CSV and PDF exports. Pricing starts at $99 per month, and there is no HRIS hookup or annual contract, unlike the enterprise salary benchmarking software your Series C friends are quoted.
For the fundamentals of percentiles, band width and posted ranges, start with the salary bands guide. Hiring outside tech? See how the same bands work for small business salary benchmarking and nonprofit salary benchmarking.