Top 5 Salary Comparison Tools 2018

Before you can set or negotiate a worker’s pay level, you’ll need to do a salary comparison with salary data you have gathered for similar roles at other companies. There are a range of resources that can help you with this.

We list the best 5 salary comparison tools and explain what makes them unique and how to use them.

	Finest for
Really	Best free salary comparison tool which includes mix of employee-reported, employer-reported, and job posting info.
Bureau of Labor Statistics	Finest free tool for job fitting and seeing salary trends over time.
Salary.com	Finest for employer-reported data and unique filters to get an accurate salary contrast. Price starts at $29.95 for a single report.
PayScale	Best for a holistic Summary of staffing needs and costs. Initial report is free.
LinkedIn Salary	Finest if you are already a LinkedIn Premium contributor (salary tool is included with subscription).

Top Salary Comparison Tools

Tool #1: Indeed

Really is the largest job posting site on Earth. It’s a robust set of salary information that’s a blend of information pulled out of job postings, employer reported data, and worker reported data. It’s totally free to use, and since Indeed captures data from so many businesses, it’s a fantastic instrument for competitor analysis.

Price

Free

Characteristics

• Ability to research over 450 million data points by job title or business
• View average salary for a particular job title and salary range for this job name
• View hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and annual salaries
• Do rival analysis by visiting popular companies for any particular job name and what they cover
• Easily view jobs which have similar names or job descriptions to your search
• View salary satisfaction levels for employees at a given company
• View average employee benefits for a given company, such as 401K, medical insurance, life insurance, paid time off, stock options, and more.

Why We Like It

First, who doesn’t like free data? Additionally, since the largest job posting website, Indeed has a rich information collection that attracts from 3 sources: employer reported, job advertisements, and employee reported. The snapshot of this salary range for your position plus the amount of data points contained are super useful.

The rival analysis tools is where Indeed actually shines. As there’s such a large volume of data points, odds are pretty good you’ll see how much rival companies are supplying for the exact same position. The capability to determine salary satisfaction next to average salary for a provider adds insight around how aggressive your salary range might be. Additionally, the information regarding employee benefits lets you consider if you should negotiate wages alongside other parts of your compensation package. Perhaps your competitor is offering a higher salary, but health insurance may matter more to your workers than a fatter paycheck.

What is Missing

Indeed is fantastic for obtaining a high-level view of the appropriate salary for a single position. But it would be better if you can download the information. That would allow users to fine tune their investigation, such as eliminating outliers or focusing on specific competitor companies. Downloadable data would also allow employers to automate the process when they need to analyze a large number of places or want to maintain a running investigation going.

Visit Indeed

Tool #2: Bureau of Labor Statistics Salary Survey

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) salary poll is the largest of its kind. It is a highly scientific government-run survey that is free to download. The information is sourced from nationally employer surveys on a quarterly basis and has the strongest filtering and downloading capabilities. This helps you account for organizational, regional, and other variations in reimbursement.

Price

Free (if you discount that it’s paid for by your tax dollars)

Features

• Biggest data set of standardized names and job descriptions, which makes it easier to perform an apples-to-apples comparison
• Covers 800 occupations and 400 industries (utilizing NAICS industry codes)
• Filter by regional, national, state, metropolitan area, or county data to account for regional variations in salary
• Filter by business size
• Filter by job attributes such as union or nonunion, part-time and fulltime work status, incentive-based and time-based cover, and work degree
• All information is downloadable in a variety of formats
• International information readily available, which can be significant if you employ virtual assistants, salespeople, or other people who are very likely to be located outside the united states.

Why We Enjoy It

BLS information is a rich, free data collection which can be downloaded and sliced and diced in interesting and special ways. It has a whole lot of filter choices. The standardized classification system for jobs and industries makes an apples-to-apples comparison very simple. Job titles on other sites can vary considerably, especially over time. But since BLS information is standardized, you can use, state code 13-1111, Management Advisors, for year-over-year contrast. Accessibility to county and metropolitan area is also a special method of filtering the information, and it lets you account for small but possibly significant regional variations in salary. The biggest advantage is the ability to download the information in order to be able to fine tune your analysis using a spreadsheet.

What is Missing

While the big, standardized dataset and filters are excellent, they are at the cost of simplicity of use. The BLS interface is unwieldy and difficult to navigate and use. The datasets, while large, aren’t so granular because of the standardization technique. This means that you might not be able to locate a precise match for your specific job if it does not fit a job or industry that the BLS uses. There’s no company-specific data , making aggressive evaluation more difficult. Also, the information is only updated quarterly, less often as some other services.

See BLS

Tool #3: Salary.com

Salary.com is one of the earliest sources of salary information on the web. They have 100% employer-reported survey data bought from data collectors. The data is updated monthly, and goods are free to paid vouchers. There are a few unique filters that are not available on other websites, such as salary based on management and performance level.

Cost

Salary.com has many products at various price points:

• Full reports on a single place for $29.95 to $79.95
• Data subscriptions ranging from $700 to $1,200+ annually
• CompAnalyst® firm applications — costs vary

Characteristics

• 600 million data points and data for 4,200 jobs accessible
• Search by job title and region
• Filter by area, firm size, industry, education level, years of experience, number of direct reports, reports to, and even performance (for example”excellent”,”above expectations”,”poor”, etc.. )
• Quartiles and averages of comparison statistics
• Annual, monthly, semimonthly, biweekly, weekly, and hourly salary info

Why We Enjoy It

Salary.com has existed since 1999, and that is how it’s collected such a large data set of 600 millions points. The”Performance” and”Reports To” filters are fairly unique. The Performance filter applies standardized categories — such as”excellent”,”above expectations”,”poor”, etc. — to each position. This would be most helpful perhaps not when creating a first hire, but if determining advertising potential or through annual performance reviews. The”Reports To” filter adds the immediate manager title to filtering capacities.

Salary.com has a variety of choices to fit every person’s or business’ budget. In 4,200 positions, it is does not have as many as PayScale, but this is employer reported information, which tends to be of higher quality, so on this front, it is a sizeable, quality dataset. It also allows you to choose between one-off evaluation and continuing searches.

What is Missing

While it’s a fantastic data collection, Salary.com’s interface is a bit outdated. It is not as slick as some of the other offers, such as LinkedIn. Its variety of products and services is also somewhat confusing to navigate. It would be better when it was laid out at a more straightforward presentation. Also, the free tier does not supply as much free information as are available on other sites.

See Salary.com

Tool #4: PayScale

PayScale is a easy-to-use tool that contains a robust amount of employee-reported data. It includes unique filtering, such as length of sail and certifications. It also lets you get a more holistic idea of your staffing costs than other tools. Reports are simple and easy to comprehend, however, the plethora of job titles may make it difficult to get the ideal title comparison.

Cost

Pricing is on a case-by-case basis per client and varies by use. Your first comparison report is free.

Features

• 54 million profiles, 15,000 job titles
• Data comes from worker reported wages
• Data is updated live as new people fill out their wages information online
• Robust filtering including titles, region, industry, benefits, company size, education, certificates, and abilities
• Job title matching where similar titles are grouped
• Track salary comparisons over time
• Benchmarks and scenario building — For Instance, If you’re starting a new retail shop you can create a scenario where you model hiring a manager and a number of salespeople to see the salary cost of the new shop

Why We Enjoy It

PayScale has an incredibly massive data collection. In addition to having the capability to filter common fields, the addition of special data points such as length of sail or certifications helps create a more accurate contrast. Also, their reporting arrangement is not difficult to understand and is one of the very best in the marketplace.

What is Missing

Similar to other for-fee providers, it can be tricky to comprehend differences between PayScale’s distinct goods — Insight, Benchmark, MarketPay, and Data. All seem to be market comparison solutions. Employee reported data is not as reliable, so this tool could be better when it had been supplemented with employer reported information. Finally, with numerous job titles in the database, 15,000, fitting job titles into your specific role can be tricky.

Visit PayScale

Tool #5: LinkedIn Salary

LinkedIn Salary is a new entrant to the field of salary data, but it has one of the very best professional data sets online. Though LinkedIn Salary doesn’t now take action, they could eventually augment their salary data with other interesting filters such as abilities. It will be interesting to see where they take it.

Cost

Free when you submit your own salary information as an employee. LinkedIn Salary can also be included using a Premium subscription, which is $59.99 a month, so no need to submit your data if you are a Premium subscriber.

Features

• New offering — started in the end of 2016
• Faculties submitted data
• See number of answers per role
• Filter by title, area, industry, and years of experience
• Also get advice based on education and area of research
• Includes incentive, signing bonus, and stock option information
• View specific company examples for competitive evaluation

Why We Enjoy It

LinkedIn Salary is very straightforward to use and comprehend. It is a nice feature in the event that you already have a Premium account or are willing to talk about your own company data. It’s easy to see comparison for other businesses and salaries for comparable names. Presumably, LinkedIn will eventually add its unique data fields such as skills, and you are going to be able to filter from these areas.

What is Missing

Since LinkedIn is based on self-reported salary information so as to grant access to reports, it is potentially subject to erroneous reporting by people who just want access. The tool could be better if supplemented with job submitting data or company reported information. Right now, all data comes from individuals who voluntarily submit their salary data to gain access to comparison data. Because the service is fresh, in addition, it has fewer job titles than other providers. It is fantastic for one-off evaluation but not for a great deal of positions or tracking over time.

See LinkedIn

How To Utilize Salary Comparison Tools

There are a few key points that you should keep in mind regardless of which tools or tool you end up using.

Get An Excellent Job Match

Salary ranges for any job title may vary significantly depending on a number of factors. An engineer at New York City is going to make more than the same engineer in Iowa. Factors such as location, education, years of experience, and business may have a huge impact on what you should be targeting as a salary. Moreover, job titles can vary a lot, so make sure to think about similar job titles in the event that you can when gathering salary data. Filter by as many variables as you can to get information that closely matches the position you’re hiring for.

Quantity vs. Match

You will want to be careful to strike the right balance between exact match and quantity of data points. The nearer you can match a comparison profile with your work profile, the more important the comparison information is. However, because you add constraints like region or experience, you are going to reduce the size of your data collection. Reduce it too much and you won’t have a large enough data set to get a trusted comparison.

Compa Indicator

In general, you’re looking to make a competitive salary, so don’t focus on a single number. Calculate a comparison range along with a compa ratio. Compa ratio, short for comparison ratio, is a comparison of the salary you’re paying your workers versus the industry midpoint for similar positions at other companies. Decide where on the scale that you are interested in being in order to be competitive, taking into consideration other things you provide for your employees, such as benefits, flexibility, and your business brand. Learn how to figure compa ratio.

How We Reviewed Salary Comparison Tools

Now that we’ve covered the best salary comparison tools, here’s more on how exactly we analyzed them and determined which ones made the cut. Tools vary on information sources, types of information provided, and available features.

Quantity of Data

A large data set allows you to be more confident that you are getting a good read on the market for comparison. It also gives you greater capacity to filter out the information, say by area or industry, so as to get a better apples-to-apples salary comparison.

Data Source

Generally there are 3 sources of salary info out there:

• Company reported salary data through questionnaires or as part of a salary control service
• Worker reported salary information, generally coming from users submitting their wages data online in exchange for access to contrast salary data
• Salary data pulled from job postings

Comparable Role Data

There’s wide variation in job titles and role descriptions from 1 firm to the next. The closer the match of this function you are comparing to the role you’re hiring for, the more relevant and helpful the information point is. The availability of considerable quantities of unstructured information across a wide array of roles is best.

Filter Options

Very similar to role data, the closer you can match comparison data to your particular circumstance, the better it is. A number of factors can have an impact on salary information, such as industry, area, company size, experience level required for the position, education requirements, etc.. If you’re able to filter the data along these variables, the information tool is more helpful when setting and negotiating salary. Some tools, like PayScale, even more unique filtering options like commute time.

Ranges

Some services include just the average salary or median salary for a function. It is more helpful to have the ability to see a salary range, so you can choose where you would like your organization to be relative to other people.

The preceding 5 services scored highly across all these factors.

Bottom Line on Salary Comparison Tools

Irrespective of which salary comparison tool you use, you need to be using one. It takes a while to find the ideal instrument for you and also to get the hang of it, but it is the ideal way to have a data driven reimbursement. An objective, data-driven salary offer is powerful method to argue for any given salary, making the entire negotiation process easier.