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Startup Salary Benchmark
Cash and equity benchmarks for common startup roles. Filter by stage, role, and location to see realistic comp ranges.
Based on the StartupCFO 2026 Founder Salary Report and the public compensation sources in this space. They are orientation bands rather than surveyed medians.
How These Benchmarks Work
Where the data comes from
No startup publishes its comp bands, so useful benchmarks are always a synthesis. The bands here are informed by the public compensation sources in this space: Kruze Consulting's annual CEO salary survey, Pave's role-level compensation platform, Carta Equity Insights, and AngelList data, alongside the StartupCFO 2026 Founder Salary Report. Aggregated sources beat anecdotes because they average across thousands of companies rather than the two or three data points a founder hears from peers.
How to read the percentiles
Each band shows the 25th percentile, median, and 75th percentile. The median is the midpoint of the market, and the width of the band is real variance, not noise. Stage moves the whole band: median founder cash comp runs from roughly $85K at seed to $175K at Series A and $235K at Series B in the 2026 data, and employee roles scale similarly. Geography shifts it again: SF Bay Area sets the top, NYC runs about 5% below, US Remote about 12% below, and International Remote about 38% below, with wide variance. A number near the 75th percentile is defensible for a critical hire in a hot market; paying above it should have a specific reason you can articulate.
Cash is only part of the number
Startup compensation is salary plus equity, and cash benchmarks alone mislead: an early-stage offer that looks 30% below big-company market can be competitive once you price the option grant, which is why this tool shows equity as a percent of fully diluted shares alongside cash. Use the bands the way boards do: to anchor offers at a deliberate percentile, to build the payroll line of your hiring plan, and to bring data rather than anecdotes to board comp discussions. For the founder-specific version, read the 2026 Founder Salary Report and our guide on how to pay yourself as a startup founder.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What does a senior engineer make at a seed-stage startup?
- A senior engineer at a seed-stage SF Bay Area startup typically earns $135-$200K cash plus 0.25-0.5% equity (fully diluted). Remote US roles run 12% lower; Series A increases base 20% but cuts equity by ~15%.
- How much equity do founders typically keep?
- Solo founders typically start with 90% of common stock (10% option pool). After seed + Series A + Series B, two-founder teams typically each hold 12-22% of fully diluted shares. Heavy option pool top-ups in late-stage rounds further dilute.
- How is equity granted at early-stage startups?
- Most startups grant ISOs (incentive stock options) with a 4-year vesting schedule and 1-year cliff. Strike price is set at fair market value per the latest 409A valuation. Some later-stage companies grant RSUs (restricted stock units) instead.
- Should I prioritize cash or equity?
- Depends on personal runway and conviction. Equity is a long-call option: high upside, often zero. Early employees who join 1-3 years before exit often hit the optimal risk/reward. For early-stage joiners, ensure base covers 12+ months of personal runway before optimizing for equity.
- How often should salaries be benchmarked?
- At least once per year and at every fundraise. Comp bands evolve quickly in tight talent markets, and Series A/B raises typically warrant level-by-level rebenchmarking. We help our clients build comp bands tied to runway and dilution targets.
- How do remote vs. SF salaries compare?
- SF Bay Area sets the top. NYC runs ~5% below. US Remote roles run ~12% below SF. International remote roles run ~38% below SF (with wide variance, since top engineers in low-COL markets command US-equivalent comp).
- Where does the salary benchmark data come from?
- These are orientation bands, not a compensation survey. They are built from a role base scaled by stage and location, informed by the public sources in this space (Kruze's annual CEO salary survey, Pave, Carta and AngelList), and they are deliberately round. Use them to sanity-check an offer or a plan, not to set a number. For founder pay specifically, our 2026 Founder Salary Report carries the surveyed medians, which sit below these bands at seed and above them at Series B.
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