Founder Salary Report by Pilot.com - Salary data from founders across the globe

"What should I be paying myself?” is one of the most common questions founders ask, and it’s hard to find good data. So we surveyed founders from across the globe to get ranges, averages, and distributions to help get this question answered.

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👋 Hi, Product Hunt! I'm Waseem, cofounder and CEO at Pilot.com, and one of the creators of the Founder Salary Report 💸 Why did we make this? At Pilot.com, we specialize in accounting, tax, and CFO needs for startups 🏦. One of the most common questions we hear from founders is: “What should I be paying myself?" 🤔 And as a three-time startup founder myself, I was stumped to not have a really solid answer. There just isn’t good data here that’s publicly available. So we changed that: we surveyed over 500 founders to capture that data for you. 📊📈 There’s no magic number 🎱 for what you should be paying yourself, but we hope this report serves as a useful guide in discussing compensation with your cofounders 👯 and investors 👩‍💼🕴️ We’d love to get your feedback. We’ll be around all day answering questions, so feel free to comment here or email me directly at P.S. 🌎 Thanks to all the founders who participated in the survey—this is quite a rare snapshot of real-world data gathered from founders across the globe. ✨😊 P.P.S. 🤭 As another little offering for the PH community, if you have a startup and you’re looking for help with accounting, tax, or CFO services, the first 100 folks from PH that sign up with Pilot will get 20% off 💰 their first six months of Pilot Core, if you use this link: We work with literally thousands of startups and are backed by Sequoia, Stripe, and Jeff Bezos—so you’re in good hands. 🚀🚀
Congratulations on the launch 🚀
Great data, thanks for posting! Interesting how average in Boston is higher than SF :) is it a thing to pay a slightly higher salary after the raise to offset years of not taking any salary?
*Generally* not—what we tend to see is that in the early days your equity comp is significant (and hopefully the business has appreciated in value significantly, so you're covered that way.) Having said that, everything depends on your exact situation!
Great product! Congrats on the launch!
Wow it is so interesting though! It would be great if we can have some reliable references to get some ideas from.
Thank you!
Great Product. Congrats on the launch. 🥳 I also launched the Digital Product Kit. Don't forget to take a look.
Thank you!
Congratulations for the launch.Will you keep your data updated every other weeks and introduce new companies as well?
We'll update it every year! (We did a 2021 report and this is the 2022 version.)
It's good to know you guys keep your data updated. All the best brother
Super helpful—simplifies a stressful part of being a founder. Thanks and team!
Thank you!!
Thanks for building this —always useful to have this benchmark and see we're middle of the pack :)
Alex, you're a top quartile founder and should be paying yourself accordingly, let me know if I can talk to your investors :) :)
Looks great Waseem! Founder salaries are challenging to figure out, and it's so nice to have this resource!
Thank you!
Love pilot, and thrilled to get a copy of this report. We (bit.io) have used pilot since our inception and it's worth every penny. The CFO service is also great!
Thank you Adam!
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