Finding and retaining top talent is one of the biggest challenges facing companies today. With unemployment reaching record lows and the “Great Resignation” in full swing, employees have more options than ever before.
To recruit and keep star performers on your team, you need to offer competitive compensation packages. But how do you know what salary levels, bonus structures, and benefits packages actually qualify as “competitive” in your industry and location?
That’s where compensation surveys come in. These detailed reports analyze pay scales across entire industries, job functions, company sizes, and geographic regions. They give you crucial market data to benchmark your compensation plans against.
With so many compensation survey providers on the market, it can be tough to determine which ones are truly the best. In this post, we’ll review the top 8 compensation survey options based on coverage, ease of use, customization options, and pricing.
Let’s get started!
What are the Top 8 Compensation Survey Providers of 2024?
1. Salary.com
Salary.com has been a leader in the compensation survey space for over 25 years. They offer some of the most comprehensive databases covering over 800 occupations across multiple industries and locations in North America.
Key features:
Extensive coverage: Their databases include salary ranges, bonus percentages, equity compensation, and benefit details. Industries covered include technology, healthcare, manufacturing, finance, and more.
Customizable reports: You can generate highly tailored reports based on factors like company size, years of experience, education level, job level, and more.
User-friendly experience: The online platform is intuitive to navigate. Reports can be downloaded in Excel with just a few clicks.
Frequent updates: Data is refreshed quarterly or annually depending on the survey to keep it current.
Various packages: Options range from individual surveys up to enterprise-wide solutions depending on your needs and budget.
Pricing: Starts around $400-500 per individual survey but bulk discounts are available. Annual subscriptions provide unlimited access.
Salary.com is a solid choice for any organization looking for broad salary benchmarks across a wide range of professional jobs. Their surveys are some of the most flexible and easy to work with on the market.
2. Economic Research Institute (ERI)
ERI focuses specifically on compensation surveys for organizations in manufacturing, production, distribution, construction, healthcare, and consulting.
Key features:
Custom data collection: For many industries, ERI can work directly with clients to collect proprietary salary data from their own competitors to create custom surveys.
Occupation-specific insights: Surveys analyze compensation broken down by over 150 detailed occupation categories like engineers, accountants, executives, etc.
Robust analytics: Detailed statistical analyses and modeling tools help benchmark jobs, structures pay grades, and project future costs.
Visualizations: Graphical displays of data help simplify complex compensation analyses and wage gap identification.
Global coverage: ERI partners extend their reach internationally as well with surveys in Europe, Asia, South America, and more.
Pricing is customized per client but ERI is a great fit for manufacturers, industrial companies, and niche occupations seeking highly customized compensation insights.
Expect to pay a few thousand dollars or more annually for tailored packages.
3. Willis Towers Watson
Formerly Towers Watson and Watson Wyatt, Willis Towers Watson has existed for over 60 years compiling compensation surveys and consulting services.
Key features:
Health benefits: Detailed reports on healthcare costs, plan designs, and wellness programs for benchmarking.
Executive compensation: Surveys covering C-suites, boards of directors, and other high-level roles in many industries.
Retirement benefits: Analyses of 401k plans, pensions, and other post-employment benefits.
Rewards & Incentives: Surveys include short and long-term incentives plus non-cash rewards.
Multi-Country capabilities: Global surveys span all major markets like Europe, Asia, Latin America, and more.
Pricing is not publicly listed but expect enterprise solutions from Willis Towers Watson to start around $10,000 or higher depending on customization required.
4. CompData Surveys
CompData focuses exclusively on providing wage and compensation survey data to small and mid-sized companies.
Key features:
Tailored for SMBs: Surveys report wage levels geared towards companies with 1-500+ employees in size.
Variety of industries: From technology to manufacturing to non-profits, surveys cover over 35 industries.
Easy to implement: Reports are easy to understand and apply without extensive data analysis skills required.
Frequent updates: Surveys refresh data quarterly or twice yearly to keep compensation plans current.
Cost-effective: Pricing starts around $350 per individual survey with bulk and bundled discounts for additional surveys.
CompData is a solid choice for small and mid-sized companies seeking access to actionable wage data without enterprise-level price tags. Their streamlined reporting makes implementation straightforward.
5. PayScale
PayScale combines compensation survey data collection with talent analytics and compensation management software solutions.
Key features:
Salary benchmarking: Draw comparative salary data from over 8 million crowdsourced salary profiles globally.
Compensation calculators: Interactive tools help set pay ranges, equity grants, bonuses without surveys.
HR software: Integrated talent management applications tie compensation to goals, performance, and market research.
Customizable reports: Filter data visually based on location, company size, experience levels, and more attributes.
Frequent updates: Data refreshed quarterly from ongoing profile submissions keeps insights current.
Pricing relies on a freemium model plus monthly or annual subscriptions starting around $250-500 depending on features needed.
PayScale is a good fit for organizations wanting compensation surveys bundled with tech-enabled talent tools.
6. Equifax Workforce Solutions
Formerly known as The Work Number, Equifax Workforce Solutions uses its vast credit reporting databases to power compensation surveys for validating and benchmarking payroll information.
Key features:
Large-scale datasets: Billions of payroll records provide salary norms across industries, locations, roles, demographics and more.
Custom report builder: Intuitive online interface lets you select attributes to build highly targeted benchmark reports.
Integrations: APIs available to pull Equifax data directly into HRIS, ATS, and other talent systems for auto-benchmarking.
Frequent updates: Payroll databases update daily providing real-time compensation intelligence.
Multi-use cases: Surveys supplement benchmarking, compensation planning, market pay analysis needs.
Equifax solutions range from a few hundred dollars for self-serve reports up to tens of thousands annually for highly customized benchmarking modules. Agencies benefit from the massive underlying datasets.
7. The Conference Board
As a global non-profit focused on economic research, The Conference Board gathers compensation data worldwide with reports focusing on the following.
Key features:
Cross-functional roles: Common job families like finance, marketing, operations etc. are well represented.
Executive compensation: C-level pay surveys span many industries in the US and internationally.
Benefits packages: Health plans, retirement benefits, leave policies, and more are researched.
Occupational wages: Hourly and annual wage benchmarks across key functions and industries.
Demographics: Factors like education, years of experience, company size are analyzed.
Pricing starts at a few hundred dollars for self-serve reports going up to multi-thousand annual subscriptions depending on level of customization and user access required.
The Conference Board offers academic-quality compensation research.
8. Beqom
Beqom is a cloud-based total compensation management platform that incorporates surveys, software tools, and guidance from compensation experts.
Key features:
Integrated system: Compensation planning, analysis, modelling, and administration all in one workflow-driven platform.
Customizable surveys: Users can build their own questionnaires and reports or subscribe to existing ones.
Strategic consulting: Compensation experts available to provide strategic guidance, best practices, and validation.
International data: Surveys span over 100 countries worldwide for global companies.
Unified system: Connects compensation decisions to performance, goals, and equity across an organization.
While pricing depends on features and customization required, Beqom offers a comprehensive software-guided solution for large enterprises with deeper budget needs. Starting costs are in the mid five figures annually.
Choosing the Right Compensation Survey Provider For You
With so many top compensation survey options on the market, deciding which one aligns best depends on analyzing your specific requirements. Here are a few considerations to help you choose:
Industry Coverage – Which industries are relevant for your company? Ensure surveys focus on your field.
Company Size – Surveys catering to your employee headcount will provide the most suitable comparisons.
Job Functions – Do surveys analyze roles you need help benchmarking like sales, engineering, support etc.?
Locations – Data should cover regions and countries where you operate for geographic pay norms.
Frequency of Updates – How quickly does the survey provider refresh data? Quarterly is minimum for accurate market insights.
Customization Options – Can you filter surveys based on your business needs like office size, education levels etc.?
Pricing and Packages – Evaluate research or software bundles plus individual report/subscription costs relative to budget.
Ease of Implementation – Consider how simple reports are to navigate, understand, apply so findings don’t collect dust.
Reputation and Trust – Vet providers through third-party reviews and case studies of customer satisfaction and survey reliability.
Taking the time upfront to analyze your exact requirements against provider capabilities will lead you to opt for compensation survey partners that deliver the most valuable and actionable market intelligence.
With so much on the line in today’s competitive talent wars, don’t leave compensation to chance – ensure you have the insights needed to succeed.