Startup Compensation Data Sources
Here’s some links to helpful market data for startup equity offers. Individuals negotiating a startup offer often struggle to find good resources for startup compensation data since the key data sources are only available on the company side.
Negotiating startup salary and stock options or RSUs? These are links to market data that readers have found helpful. Photo by ThisIsEngineering.
Attorney Mary Russell counsels individuals on startup equity, including:
You are welcome to contact her at (650) 326-3412 or at info@stockoptioncounsel.com.
Published February 2023. Updated regularly.
Market Data Sources
Individuals often struggle to find good resources for startup compensation data since subscriptions to the primary startup compensation data sources are only available on the company side. Companies are using Pave (including the classic Advanced-HR Venture Capital Executive Compensation Survey, now owned by Pave), Radford, Mercer, and Carta. The information imbalance is challenging to say the least.
October 2024 update: Pave is currently the most highly-respected data source for startups, so that is the gold standard right now for startups making offers. However, Pave has the least access available to individuals. If you’re at Pave and want to help rectify this, let me know :). Carta has the most access for individuals (see below re Friends of Carta), but it’s numbers skew very low in my experience.
Here’s some links that readers have found helpful:
November 2024, Carta’s update on 1st 10 hires equity comp info.
September 2024, Carta’s Peter Walker with data on director-level roles at startups with $50M valuation v. $500M valuation. Includes salary benchmarks for director of customer success, director of sales, director of operations, director of marketing, director of HR, director of design, director of product, director of data, and director of engineering.
September 2024, Alejandro Cremades of Panthera Advisors on distributing equity among founders and early employees.
August 2024, venture capitalist Heidi Roizen’s podcast on “How to Think About Dilution,” with helpful thoughts on distributing equity among founders and why founders, executives and employees should not expect to maintain their equity percentage over time.
July 2024, Carta’s Start of Startup Compensation Report for Q1 2024, including downloadable addendum with further data on employees, board members, and advisors.
July 2024, Carta’s Peter Walker’s Salary Gap by Company Valuation, finding that “salaries jump about 20% between companies worth $25 million and companies worth $250 million." He asks the $10 million dollar question: “does the expected value of the equity increase over that same valuation span justify the reduced salary?”
July 2024, General Catalyst’s 2024 Equity Refresh Survey.
June 2024, Betts’ Recruiting 2024 Compensation Guide for cash compensation for all levels of sales and marketing roles.
May 2024, Charlie Franklin’s post on the nuances of AI engineering compensation including the “growing spread between the AI median and 75th percentile.”
April 2024, Carta’s post on equity refreshes at startups. Still, in my experience the lion’s share (I’d say 90%) of equity at startups is in the initial grant, so that’s where the action is on negotiating equity at startups.
April 2024, Betts Recruiting published their 2024 Executive Comp Guide for salaries for exec roles (including fractional) from Seed through Series D.
April 2024, Levels.fyi’s co-founder published some commentary and data links on compensation for AI talent on LinkedIn.
April 2024, Pave CEO published data on founding and non-founding startup CEO compensation on LinkedIn.
March 2024, Carta published their State of Startup Compensation for H2 2023.
March 2024, Carta published an addendum to the above with data for early stage companies including: median advisor equity for pre-seed, seed, and Series A companies, median equity grants for a startup’s first 10 employees and median equity grants for startup board members at the early stages.
March 2024, Betts Recruiting published compensation discussion on Enterprise Account Executive role and comp.
February 2024, Betts Recruiting published their 2024 Compensation Guide. Includes great insights about variations in today’s market for Sales, Customer Success and Marketing roles.
February 2024, Betts recruiting published their How Much Money Can You Make in Tech Sales for 2024.
January 2024, Carta’s posting on startup advisor compensation on LinkedIn. Careful these numbers seem low for a lot of people called “advisors” who Carta categorizes as something else.
January 2024, Betts Recruiting published their Top Account Executive Compensation Trends in Tech for 2024.
January 2024, Betts Recruiting published their Top Sales Development Representative Compensation Trends in Tech for 2024.
January 2024, FairOffer.ai launched an innovative data-science based comp tool with searches available to individuals. I’m still testing to see if it’s in line with other more established services, but seems like an exciting offering.
EOY 2023, Levels published its 2023 Pay Report showing median total yearly compensation for various job families and levels: “While new graduate and entry level roles have been significantly affected this year, the most competitive opportunities still continue to compensate significantly for top talent.”
On November 14, 2023, Compa published a data-centered analysis on the difference in compensation between SWE and AI Eng: AI Eng pays 2x higher than SWE- Salaries have ~10-15% premium, but new hire grants have ~100%+ premium.
As of October 20, 2023, Carta has offered a “Friends of Carta” program where they have offered to provide their compensation data to individuals on a one-off basis. More here.
On October 10, 2023, Betts Recruiting published its Top Director Compensation Trends, highlighting various salary and benefit trends for the top Director and department Head titles at startups.
Carta’s Startup Comp Report H1 2023 offered trends in salaries and equity grants in this unique time in the market.
Wellfound (previously Angel List Talent) on salary and equity benchmarks for early stage startups.
Q4 2023 update on VP level salary ranges from Betts Recruiting’s blog.
September 2023, General Catalyst’s survey on startup advisor compensation.
July 2023, Carta’s Data Minute published median founder equity splits data in their newsletter.
One founder: 100%
Two founders: 55%/45%
Three founders: 47%/33%/17%
Four founders: 40%/27%/18%/10%
Five founders: 35%/22%/17%/12%/9%
Salaries, OTE, etc. for sales roles from RepVue.
Roger Lee of Layoffs.io fame launched Comprehensive.IO to track salary range listings.
Bett's Recruiting’s 2023 2H Compensation Guide with market data for cash compensation at all levels within Sales, Customer Success and Marketing by geographic location.
Betts Recruiting’s 2023 Executive Compensation Guide with market data for cash compensation for many C-suite and VP roles at startups by company stage including C-level, VPs, directors, fractional and advisors!
Carta’s State of Startup Compensation report Q1 2023 including median equity grants for a startup’s first 10 hires. These numbers seemed really low to me, and I asked some questions of the writer to figure out why. These numbers exclude any grant over 5%, so it skews low. They’ve classified any grant over 5% as a founder not an employee. So if these seem low to you, that’s why!
Carta’s State of Startup Compensation report Q1 2023 including median advisor grants by company stage pre-seed, seed and Series A, geographic adjustments, and median salaries for 9 functions (engineering, data, product, legal, research, design, strategy, sales, finance, HR/recruiting, marketing, project management, customer success, operations, accounting, support and administrative). One quick-take: "10% of pre-seed advisors receive 1% or more equity.”
Carta’s September 2022 shockingly comprehensive Salary & Equity Data for New York City for all levels within engineering, product and customer success. Thank you, Peter Walker @ Carta.
Betts Recruiting’s 2022 Equity Guide with market data for equity and cash offers for all levels on the sales team, directors and advisors at seed (by %), Series A (by %), Series B (by %), and Series C through IPO (by dollar value)
Matt Schulman of Pave (a company-side startup compensation data service) 2023 Medium post titled How much comp should the first engineer at a venture backed startup get — cash, equity, and title? Pave also publishes an Equity Guide, designed to help companies approach equity data including the difference between new hire benchmarks and total equity benchmarks. Linking here in case individuals might find it helpful.
Startup Legal Stuff’s guide for employers with recommended equity percentages for equity grants following a Series A for C-suite, board members, lead engineer, senior engineer, and junior engineer.
Carta’s Average salary ranges in NYC: Engineering, product, customer success including specific salary data for companies with $100-250M post-money valuation for engineer senior manager, engineering director, product senior manager, product director, customer success senior manager and customer success director.
In 2018, Business Insider published a database of startup executive compensation data leaked from Andreessen Horowitz. The cash numbers are likely outdated, but the equity numbers are likely still “in the range.”
Good luck! Please send along anything you’d like me to include on this list.
How to Use Market Data
And here’s some good links on how to use market data. They are written for companies, but helpful to any individual’s thoughtful approach to this topic.
April 2024, Charlie Franklin of Compa’s discussion of leveling as “at least twice as important as market percentile.” I wholeheartedly agree.
February 2024, Heidi Roizen’s podcast commentary on startup advisors.
Carta’s State of Startup Compensation H1 2023 re market trends on salary and equity benchmarks.
Leveling Guide from Carta.
Why peer group selection is as important as market percentile from Charlie Franklin.
Why not to use pay range disclosures as a guide to market comp from Charlie Franklin: “[U]sing pay range disclosures to price jobs is problematic. The jobs aren’t leveled and matched, the ranges are broad (and it’s hard to know where companies actually pay in the range, or if they’re disclosing the real range), and of course you can only see base salary, a small part of the story.”
Attorney Mary Russell counsels individuals on startup equity, including:
You are welcome to contact her at (650) 326-3412 or at info@stockoptioncounsel.com.
VIDEO Startup Stock Options: Startup Valuation
Attorney Mary Russell counsels individuals on startup equity, including:
You are welcome to contact her at (650) 326-3412 or at info@stockoptioncounsel.com.
Attorney Mary Russell counsels individuals on startup equity, including:
You are welcome to contact her at (650) 326-3412 or at info@stockoptioncounsel.com.
Startup Stock Options | Post Termination Exercise Period | Examples of Good Startup Equity Design by Company Stage
Attorney Mary Russell counsels individuals on startup equity, including:
You are welcome to contact her at (650) 326-3412 or at info@stockoptioncounsel.com.
Originally published August 11, 2017. Updated March 17, 2023.
It’s helpful for startup employees to understand early expiration of stock options and the possible solution of a full 10 year post-termination exercise period. But the full 10 year term stock option is not the right design for every startup equity grant! In some cases it would be the wrong ask, and pushing for it can can lead to embarrassment or a disadvantageous design.
Examples of Good Startup Equity Design by Company Stage
I work with individual clients to balance their priorities for investment timing, tax timing, tax rates and value structure. These are some examples of how the trade-offs are made at each stage. You can also read more about option exercise strategies here in the Menu of Stock Option Exercise Strategies.
1. Earliest Stage - Startup Restricted Stock Purchase
While a startup is in its early stages and its Fair Market Value (FMV) is quite low, consider purchase of Restricted Stock for founders and early employees. This is the model used for Founders’ Stock at startups, and it is also ideal for executives and employees who are willing to pay the FMV of the common stock up-front for their shares. With the use of an 83(b) election with the IRS, Restricted Stock purchase provides for tax deferral until sale of stock, favorable capital gains tax rates at sale of stock, and fewer tax penalties than stock options in the event the IRS determines the FMV was underpriced for the shares.
2. Early to Mid-Stage - Early Exercise of Startup Stock Options
For those who are willing to take early investment risks for tax deferral and lower tax rates, consider early exercise of stock options. This is an obvious choice for early-stage startup hires who can afford the stock purchase price at hire. For example, at a very early stage startup an employee’s total exercise price might be less than $1,000. Early exercise may also be a good choice for some individuals at mid-stage startups with somewhat higher exercise prices or even later stage startups with high growth potential, as an early investment may be worth it for future tax savings and/or tax deferral.
Early exercise stock options can be exercised before vesting. If they are exercised before the FMV rises above the exercise price, tax payments are deferred until sale of stock by use of a Section 83(b) election at the time of purchase.
However, the investment risk is real, as the purchase price is delivered up-front and shares are held as an investment. If the shares were to become worthless, the investment amount would be lost for both vested and unvested shares.
Early exercise stock options are preferable to restricted stock if the employee is not sure about making the investment up-front. Unlike the purchase of restricted stock, the choice to exercise stock options (even with early exercise rights) can be deferred for some time. However, if the exercise or early exercise is made after the FMV has gone up, the exercise will lead to taxable income.
The early exercise structure can be combined with an extended exercise period (see below under #3 or more here on the blog), so that the employee has the choice between early exercising to minimize tax rates or deferring exercise until any time within the full 10 year term.
Note that the right to early exercise can be a disadvantage for stock option grants with an exercise price greater than $100,000 if they are not early exercised. Any amounts over $100,000 would be ineligible for ISO status due to the ISO rules’ $100,000 limitation.
3. Early to Mid-Stage - Stock Options with Full 10-Year Exercise Period
While there is still potential for high growth in value, stock options are an advantage for employees. However, a high exercise price or a high tax bill at exercise can make it impossible for employees to take advantage of the value of stock options. This is because stock options have traditionally been granted with a disadvantageous early expiration term requiring exercise within three months of an optionee’s termination date. Therefore, stock options are most advantageous where they are granted with a full 10 year term to exercise regardless of the date of termination. This allows the optionee to defer the investment decision and the associated tax bill for exercise.
Additional consideration: Optionees who take advantage of an extended exercise period (exercise their options after 90 days from last employment) lose their Incentive Stock Option (ISO) tax treatment. Shares exercised after 90 days from last employment will be treated as Non-Qualified Stock Options (NQSOs) and generally come with a higher tax rate. However, with this extended exercise design, optionees can choose to exercise within 90 days and keep their ISO classification, or wait to exercise and accept the NQSO classification. This flexibility is key in rewarding optionees of all types and financial circumstance.
4. Later Stage - Restricted Stock Units
Employees may prefer RSUs to stock options at later stage companies for both tax deferral and offer value purposes. Well-designed RSUs defer taxes until liquidity so long as it is within a certain time frame (such as 7 years from the date of grant). RSUs are less advantageous for tax rates, though, as the value of the shares is taxed as ordinary income at settlement. RSUs are advantageous from an investment perspective because there is no investment risk as there would be in a stock option exercise prior to liquidity. RSUs also give the employee the full value of the shares at liquidity as there is no purchase price to pay for the stock as there would be with a stock option exercise price. For this reason, a grant of RSUs generally consists of fewer shares than a grant of stock options at a company of the same stage.
Wrapping Up
This is Part 3 of a 3-part series on the startup scene’s debate about early expiration stock options. See Early Expiration of Startup Stock Options - Part 1 - The $1 Million Problem for more information on the issue and Early Expiration of Startup Stock Options - Part 2 - The Full 10-Year Term Solution for more information on the full 10-year term solution.
Thank you to attorney Augie Rakow, a partner at Orrick who advises startups and investors, for sharing his creative solution to this problem in Early Expiration of Startup Stock Options - Part 2 - The Full 10-Year Term Solution.
Thank you to JD McCullough for edits to this post. JD is a health tech entrepreneur, interested in connecting and improving businesses, products, and people.
Attorney Mary Russell counsels individuals on startup equity, including:
You are welcome to contact her at (650) 326-3412 or at info@stockoptioncounsel.com.