Market Compensation

A market percentile indicates how a job’s compensation compares to the broader market. It’s also how companies express their pay philosophy (e.g., target the 50th, 65th, or 75th percentile).

• 50th percentile (median): Half of employees in the market earn less, half earn more.

• 65th percentile: More competitive; 65% earn less, 35% earn more.

• 75th percentile: Highly competitive; 75% earn less, 25% earn more.

Choosing a percentile helps define how your company positions pay relative to the market — whether to align, lead, or lag.

The midpoint is the central value of a compensation range, based on the selected market percentile.

• Base Salary Midpoint: Reflects the market median base salary for a given job and level.

• Total Cash Midpoint: Reflects base salary plus target variable pay (bonus, commission).

Each Kamsa range is built around its midpoint, with:

• Minimum = 85% of midpoint

• Maximum = 115% of midpoint

Total Cash represents an employee’s base salary plus target variable pay (bonus, commission).

It does not include:

• Benefits (health, retirement)

• One-time payments

• Non-mandatory allowances

Example:
If an Account Executive has a base salary of $100,000 and a target commission of $20,000, their Total Cash is $120,000.

A compensation philosophy is your company’s approach to positioning pay against the market. In Kamsa, this is expressed through the market percentiles you choose to target by job family (e.g., 65th percentile for technical roles, 50th percentile for non-technical).

This philosophy guides how your ranges are built in Kamsa and ensures consistency in pay decisions.

• Expand a department to see job families and levels where your company has matched employees.

• Each job shows minimum, midpoint, and maximum (calculated at 85% and 115% of midpoint).

• Jobs matched to Employee Data display an Internal Average (in blue).

• For non-US data cuts, the currency defaults to local currency; switch to USD using the drop-down.

You can tailor Kamsa’s market data to reflect your company’s unique needs.

Types of Adjustments:

• Add a premium % (e.g., for hard-to-fill roles).

• Apply a discount % (e.g., for more routine roles).

• Enter a custom midpoint for salary and/or total cash.

When adjusted:

• The new min and max auto-calculate (85% and 115% of midpoint).

• An icon appears: % for percentage changes, $$$ for custom midpoint values.

Managing Adjustments:

• Adjustments are listed in the Adjustments tab, organized by department and job family.

• Compare your adjusted ranges (company column) against Kamsa’s original data (market column).

• Edit or reset adjustments directly from either the Company Ranges page or the Adjustments page.

1. Click Add Open Job.

2. Enter details:

   • Company Department

   • Business Title (a consistent, market-friendly title)

   • Kamsa Job Match (aligned to responsibilities)

   • Market Data Cut(s) (multiple cuts can be selected; for VP+ US roles, also select a revenue cut)

Bulk Upload Option:

• Download the Open Jobs template, fill it in, and upload it.

• Hover over the Business Title to edit, delete, or add notes/documents (e.g., job description).

• Apply adjustments using the adjustment icon.

• Once an open job is filled, you can:

  • Add the hired employee’s info so it flows into Employee Data.

  • Choose whether to close or keep the requisition open.

• From Company Ranges or Global Market Data, click the compare icon next to a job.

• Add jobs by location, percentile, or both (e.g., compare New York vs. San Francisco ranges).

• Displays pay ranges, Market Data Cut, market percentile, source (Company vs. Market Data), and Internal Average (if applicable).

• Holds up to 25 jobs at a time.

• Export data in your preferred format.

• Each user’s compare list is unique to them.

Kamsa’s market compensation data is built from anonymized employee records submitted directly by 1,000+ clients, covering 2,000+ jobs across 60+ countries. This ensures the data reflects the actual pay practices of real operating teams — not outdated surveys or inflated ranges.

What’s included:

• Base salary

• Target variable pay (bonus, commission)

• Equity compensation (updated annually)

How often it’s updated:

• Cash compensation → refreshed quarterly (February, May, August, November)

• Equity compensation → refreshed annually

Validation process: Every data point goes through a 3-step process to ensure accuracy and consistency:

1. Job architecture alignment – roles are structured into Kamsa’s global job families and levels.

2. Machine learning QA – surfaces outliers and checks internal consistency (e.g., IC3 should never exceed IC4).

3. Human validation – Kamsa’s compensation experts review all matches before benchmarks are released.

What’s not included:

• Benefits (e.g., health, retirement)

• One-time or supplementary allowances (unless legally required in-country)

• Non-payroll costs

Because Kamsa’s dataset is refreshed regularly and rigorously validated, it already reflects current market trends — so there’s no need to “age” the data like with traditional surveys.

How this compares to others:

• Traditional surveys are often 12–18 months old by the time they’re published.

• Some providers update instantly or monthly, but that level of churn can create volatility and misleading signals.

• Kamsa’s quarterly cadence strikes the right balance — stable enough for confident pay decisions, yet fresh enough to reflect real market shifts.

All salary benchmarks in Kamsa are shown as gross compensation (before taxes or deductions).

Yes — Kamsa’s market data reflects the pay of employees living and working in that country. For example, our Netherlands market data is based on the actual salaries of employees located in the Netherlands.

The vast majority of data points come from local employees, rather than U.S. team members on temporary assignments (expats).

Kamsa’s Base Salary market midpoint data includes any mandatory or legally required allowances in a given country. For example, it reflects gross salary with required recurring payroll contributions.

It does not include:

• Supplementary or optional allowances

• One-time or annual payments

• Non-payroll costs

Kamsa's Total Cash represents an employee’s base salary plus any target variable pay (such as bonuses or commissions).

It does not include:

• Health or retirement benefits

• One-time payments

• Non-mandatory allowances or supplementary contributions

Example:
If an Account Executive has a base salary of $100,000 and a target commission of $20,000, their Total Cash would be $120,000.

Kamsa’s market data is intentionally designed to balance reliability with recruiting relevance. Rather than slicing too narrowly (e.g., by employee size, Series stage, or sub-industry), we focus on the Market Data Cuts available in the drop-down menu. This ensures sample sizes are large enough to provide accurate, stable benchmarks.

Most companies also prefer this broader view because it better reflects the actual talent pool they hire from. For example, if you’re hiring a VP of Finance, you wouldn’t want to benchmark only against a handful of Series B startups — you want a view across companies that look like your broader recruiting pool. The same applies to technical roles like Software Engineers or G&A positions, which are drawn from a wide market.

As a result, the majority of companies in Kamsa’s market database are similar in size, stage, and industry to our clients, giving you a market view that’s both relevant and representative of where you actually recruit talent.

Here is a list of the Market Data Cuts available in Kamsa. We also offer geographic differentials.

Video: Understanding Market Data Cut Approaches

Kamsa's market salary data organically reflects the impact of inflation, cost of labor, and cost of living (e.g., the value of the market demand for each job in a given country/work location). 

Therefore, the existing competitive ranges used in Kamsa (which are updated quarterly) will naturally reflect inflation and other market conditions and can be used as a data point to make pay decisions.

Below are talking points you can leverage for leaders and/or employees:

• When making pay decisions, managers/leaders factor in various data points, including market compensation data, performance, employees’ experience/skill set, and budget.

• The market compensation data that we leverage: 

  • Reflects actual employee data aggregated across companies similar to us (i.e., in growth and size); it matches the pool of talent in which we’d recruit from. 

  • The data organically factors in not only market trends, but things like cost of labor, cost of living, inflation, as well as what other similar companies are paying employees.

Yes, you can opt to lock/freeze the Market Compensation Data for a specific quarter’s data; To do so, email us at support@kamsa.com with the desired quarter you’d like to lock your market data for.

Kamsa Market Compensation Data updates are released on a quarterly basis and are dynamically updated (we notify you when this happens), and an overwhelming majority of our clients choose to have their compensation ranges dynamically updated every quarter. We highly recommend not freezing your market data. 

Kamsa does not provide benchmarks at the 90th percentile, since most companies don’t need to pay this far above market to attract and retain talent — and it can be difficult to step back once pay is anchored that high.

If you’d like an approximation, you can reference the Maximum of the 75th percentile range, which reflects 115% of the 75th percentile midpoint.

In Kamsa, compensation ranges are built from a midpoint (targeting the 50th, 65th, or 75th percentile). Each range automatically includes:

• Minimum = 85% of midpoint

• Maximum = 115% of midpoint

Kamsa does not provide benchmarks at the 25th percentile, since targeting this level would place pay significantly below market — which is not recommended for attracting or retaining talent.

If you’d like an approximation, you can reference the Minimum of the 50th percentile range, which reflects 85% of the 50th percentile midpoint.

In Kamsa, compensation ranges are built from a midpoint (targeting the 50th, 65th, or 75th percentile). Each range automatically includes:

• Minimum = 85% of midpoint

• Maximum = 115% of midpoint

Kamsa's compensation ranges are established using 85% of the midpoint (to calculate the Minimum) and 115% of the midpoint (to calculate the Maximum) and are not adjustable. 

We find this range works best for the majority of our clients - i.e., it’s wide enough to allow for flexibility needed based on an employees’ performance and experience, but narrow enough to reduce potential unconscious bias.

The Market Total Cash includes the Market Base Salary plus target variable pay (i.e., any bonus and/or commission opportunity). 

For employees in jobs at your company who are not eligible for any variable pay, focus on the Market Base Salary data. 

For employees in jobs (like Sales reps) who are eligible for variable pay opportunities, factor in the Market Total Cash in addition to the Market Base Salary data.

For common Sales and Customer Success roles, here are recommended Pay Mix guidelines by role. 

On the Market Compensation page, these suggested pay mixes are incorporated in the Market Total Cash data. 

To protect our proprietary data, by design, you cannot download all Kamsa market data.

As an alternative, if you have Admin access, you can download your employee data that contains the market data midpoint for each employee:

Step 1: Click the Employee Data page, click the More button

Step 2: Select Export Employee Data

The Base Salary Market Midpoint will reflect the compensation philosophy chosen by your organization (i.e., the market percentile for Non-Technical & Technical jobs chosen within your Company Profile, respectively).

The Minimum and Maximum for the salary band will also display within your Employee Data export. The the Minimum is 85% of midpoint and Maximum is 115% of midpoint.

The Project/Program Manager (Non-Technical) job family can be used for managers of Executive Assistants, since a heavy component of their responsibility is typically managing projects.

Implementing a bonus program for all employees may not be right for your company. 

It’s common for pre-IPO companies to not offer bonus or variable pay (except for executives, Sales, and Customer Success positions). 

However, if a company does decide to implement a bonus program across the org, here are typical guidelines to use by job level.

Email us at support@kamsa.com if you’d like more info about how Kamsa can support you in modeling out the cost of rolling out a potential bonus program.

Kamsa does not formally collect sign-on bonus information from companies. Sign-on bonuses vary so drastically by company practice and the specific candidate's situation. Generally, we don't recommend offering sign-on bonuses.