Top 6 Salary Comparison Tools for 2022
Charlette has over 10 years of experience in accounting and finance and 2 years of partnering with HR leaders on freelance projects. She uses this extensive experience to answer your questions about payroll.
Robie has more than five years of content writing experience and specializes in writing about payroll and human resources software for small businesses.
This article is part of a larger series on Hiring.
Before you can set or negotiate an employee’s pay level, you’ll want to do a salary comparison using compensation data you’ve gathered for similar roles at other companies. The best salary comparison tools provide you access to a wide range of data—from staff wages and bonuses to employee benefits—that cover many job types, skills, and positions across industries and locations. Some are free to use and include both employee and employer-reported salaries, while others offer paid solutions that provide market pay data sourced from salary benchmarking studies.
We evaluated a variety of solutions and narrowed the list down to our top six salary comparison tool recommendations.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS): Best overall salary comparison tool
- Indeed: Best for a blend of employee- and employer-reported and job posting data
- ZipRecruiter: Best for employers needing easy-to-understand salary research reports
- Salary.com: Best for companies that need unique data filters to view salary data
- Payscale: Best for employers looking for a compensation scenario builder
- LinkedIn Salary: Best for LinkedIn recruiters and users
Best Salary Comparison Tools Compared
Salary Comparison Free to Use | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Offers Paid Salary Research Solutions | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✔ (prices vary depending on product) | ✔ (custom-priced) | ✔ (prices vary depending on product) |
Employer- and Employee-Reported Salary Data | Employer-reported data | ✔ | Employer-reported data | Employer-reported data | ✔ | Employee-reported data |
Includes Pay Bonuses | ✔ (only shows percentage of survey respondents that offer it) | ✕ | ✕ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Basic Benefits Information | ✔ | ✔ | ✕ | ✔ | Not available in free version | ✕ |
Robust Data Points (i.e., position title, location, gender, education, and skills) | ✔ | Limited | Limited | ✔ | ✔ | Limited |
Pay Research Data Easy to Understand | Some are difficult to understand | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Downloadable Salary Comparison Reports | ✔ | ✕ | ✕ | Not available in free version | Not available in free version | ✕ |
Bureau of Labor Statistics: Best Overall Salary Comparison Tool
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Overall Score: 4.16
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Doesn’t charge fees to access and download salary comparison reports
- Large database with employer-reported data sourced from government-run nationwide surveys
- Robust data filters
- Wide selection of downloadable reports
What's Missing
- Names of company-respondents aren’t disclosed; can’t view list of high-paying companies for a selected position
- Bonus data not available; only lists the percentage of company-respondents that offer it
- Some reports are difficult to understand; requires additional resources to check position and/or industry codes
- Website looks dated
Bureau of Labor Statistics Pricing
- Salary comparison tools are free to use
- Reports are free to download
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) salary survey is the largest of its kind. It’s a highly scientific government-run survey that’s free to download. The data is sourced from quarterly nationwide employer surveys and has the most robust filtering and download capabilities. This helps you account for organizational, regional, and other data variations in compensation.
Earning an overall rating of 4.16 out of 5, the BLS scored high in pricing, comparison tools, and reporting given its free salary research reports, nationwide employer-reported data, and multiple filter options. It was rated poorly in ease of use primarily because of its dated-looking website that makes it difficult to navigate through wage reports.
Job wage summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics salary survey (Source: BLS)
Bureau of Labor Statistics Pricing
You are free to download the BLS’s wide selection of salary survey and wage comparison reports (the other providers in our list either don’t offer this option or charge extra for it).
Bureau of Labor Statistics Features
- Robust database: Its database covers 800 occupations and 400 industries with wage data that follows North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industry codes. The BLS’s large dataset of standardized job titles and position descriptions also allows you to make an apples-to-apples comparison. So while job titles on other sites can vary greatly over time, you can use the BLS’s standardized position data, let’s say code 13-1111 for Management Analysts, for year-over-year comparisons.
- Multiple filter options: Unlike Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and LinkedIn, the BLS has a lot of filter options. Sort data by organization size, part-time and full-time work status, incentive-based and time-based pay, work level, job characteristics, and bargaining status (whether union or non-union). You can also filter by national, regional, state, metropolitan area, and county data to account for regional variations in salary.
- Downloadable reports: Depending on the type of report selected, you can download salary data in PDF and XLS file formats. For survey results with charts, the BLS lets you download its charts as JPEG and PNG images that you can attach to your own reports. None of the other providers in this guide have this functionality.
Bureau of Labor Statistics Drawbacks
While the large, standardized dataset and filters are great, they come at the cost of ease of use. The BLS interface is unwieldy and difficult to navigate and use. The datasets, while large, are not very granular due to the standardization technique. This means you may not be able to find a precise match for your particular job if it doesn’t match an occupation or industry that the BLS uses. There is no company-specific data either, which makes competitive analysis more difficult.
Indeed: Best for Employee-reported, Employer-reported & Job Posting Data
Indeed
Overall Score: 4.03
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Completely free; no limits
- Has a database of over 700 million salaries; data sources include both employer- and employee-reported salaries as well as pay info from job postings
- Shows salary satisfaction percentages and common employee benefits
- Lists highest-paying companies for the position and location selected
What's Missing
- Only displays base salary; bonuses not included
- Data filters aren’t robust; you have to scroll through its salary comparison page to see pay information based on skills, work experience, location, and company
- Lacks downloadable salary compensation reports
Indeed Pricing
- Salary comparison tools are free to use
Indeed is one of the largest job posting sites on the market. It has a robust set of salary data that is a blend of information pulled from past and current job postings on Indeed, including those anonymously reported by employees and employers. It’s completely free to use, and because Indeed captures data from so many companies, it’s a good tool for competitor analysis.
Scoring 4.03 out of 5 in our evaluation, Indeed earned perfect marks in pricing given its free salary research tools. It scored the lowest in reporting because it doesn’t let you download salary comparison reports. Plus, it doesn’t have robust data filters like Payscale, Salary.com, and the BLS do.
Indeed salary comparison tool (Source: Indeed)
Indeed Pricing
While Indeed’s salary comparison tool is free to use, you have to pay for its other solutions like sponsored job listings ($5–$499 a day) and resume searches ($100 or $200 per month). However, posting jobs on its platform comes at no cost.
Indeed Features
- Large salary database: With a database of over 700 million salaries, you can easily view jobs that have similar titles or job descriptions to yours. You are granted access to a wide range of pay data by job title, location, and company. Aside from employee- and employer-reported salaries, Indeed gets its pay information from job listings posted on its site in the previous 36 months.
- Robust salary range data: You can view average hourly or salary pay for a specific job title, including the pay range for that job title. Indeed also has a down-drop button that lets you view salaries on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis. In addition, the capability to see salary satisfaction ratings for a position is helpful as it adds insight around how competitive your salary range might be. However, Indeed lacks the bonus amounts that many of the providers on list (except ZipRecruiter and the BLS) have.
- Basic employee benefits details: Information about employee benefits lets you think about whether you should change and improve the benefits part of your compensation package. With Indeed, you can view common employee benefits and/or perks for a given company (when available) and the selected position. These benefits options include health insurance, retirement plan, life insurance, paid time off, and stock options.
- Competitor analysis: Since Indeed has a large salary database, chances are pretty good that you’ll see how much competing companies are offering for the same position. Indeed even lists the companies that offer competitive salaries, including how much they pay for the position—data that ZipRecruiter, Salary.com, and the BLS don’t offer.
Indeed Drawback
Indeed is great for getting a high-level view of the appropriate salary for a single position. However, it would be even better if you could download the data. That would enable users to fine-tune their analysis, such as eliminating outliers or focusing on specific competitor companies. Downloadable data would also enable employers to automate the process when they need to analyze a large number of positions or want to keep a running analysis going.
ZipRecruiter: Best for Employers Needing Easy-to-Understand Salary Comparison Reports
ZipRecruiter
Overall Score: 3.91
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Free and easy to use
- Has an online salary comparison summary that’s simple yet easy to understand
- Salary database covers 35,000 job titles
What's Missing
- Comparison reports aren’t downloadable
- Bonus and benefits data not available
- Limited data filters; only allows you to view salaries by the hour, week, month, year, and in table format
ZipRecruiter Pricing
- Salary comparison tools are free to use
ZipRecruiter is an online talent marketplace and recruitment solution for posting jobs and finding qualified candidates. It also offers a salary comparison tool that contains compensation information from job listings posted on its site and third-party data sources (like ADP). Results of its salary research are easy to understand, plus it has a short yet helpful summary that explains the average annual pay and pay range for the position selected.
It earned an overall score of 3.91 out of 5 in our evaluation. Its ease of use and free-to-use salary comparison tools contributed to its high scores. However, ZipRecruiter’s lack of data filters and downloadable salary research reports prevented it from scoring higher on this list.
ZipRecruiter’s salary comparison tool (Source: ZipRecruiter)
ZipRecruiter summarizes the result of its salary research in an easy-to-understand online report. (Source: ZipRecruiter)
ZipRecruiter Pricing
You can use ZipRecruiter’s salary research tool at no cost. For its paid solutions, which include one-click job postings, resume bank access, and unlimited candidate applications, you have to contact ZipRecruiter to request pricing. Based on the quote we received, its fees start at $16 per job post daily or $299 per month, depending on the type of plan selected.
ZipRecruiter Features
- Extensive database: Given that ZipRecruiter gets most of its salary data from open jobs that employers and recruiters post on its site (with over 7.5 million jobs posted daily), you get a large database of pay details. It also has salary data for 35,000 job titles—larger than Payscale’s 15,000 job titles. Plus, it uses compensation information from third-party sources, including ADP.
- Salary research summary: ZipRecruiter is the only provider on this list that shows details of its salary research both in graph and report format. These are helpful in translating the numbers into information you can use when checking a position’s salary competitiveness and planning what pay rate to add to offer letters. Other salary comparison tools, like Salary.com, may offer similar reports but you have to pay extra.
- Flexible salary views: It may not have multiple data filters like Payscale, Salary.com, and the BLS, but ZipRecruiter has flexible salary view options that lets you easily display the position’s hourly, weekly, monthly, and yearly pay data. It also has a “table view” that shows the salary range and average pay for various pay periods.
ZipRecruiter Drawbacks
ZipRecruiter’s online salary comparison tools may include a brief summary report that’s easy to understand, but you can’t download it or its bar graphs that show the average salary and pay ranges. Having data filters to view salary data based on various factors (like education level and years of work experience) would have been helpful as well. Plus, it doesn’t provide information about bonus payments and benefits, including top competitor companies.
Salary.com: Best for Businesses Wanting Unique Filters to View Compensation Data
Salary.com
Overall Score: 3.78
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Employer-reported salary information with 800 million data points
- Offers a wide range of survey and compensation management solutions
- Multiple data filters; includes unique selections for sorting data based on performance, reporting lines, and number of direct reports
What's Missing
- Some products are expensive; can be costly for small businesses especially if you get multiple tools
- Navigating through all its solutions and services can be a bit confusing
- A few of its reporting tools look dated
- Results of online salary calculator can’t be downloaded
Salary.com Pricing
- Online salary calculator: Free
- Personal salary report (for employees): $29.95–$79.95
- Job valuation/pricing reports: $245–$2,573 for one to 15 report credits
- Salary Wizard Professional (salary data subscription): $499 per month for one data scope plus $399 per month for each additional data scope
- Paid surveys for specific industries and data sets: $995–$4,975 per report
- CompAnalyst (compensation software): Custom-priced
Salary.com is one of the oldest sources of salary data on the web—the company was founded in 1999. It has 100% employer-reported survey data purchased from data collectors, and even offers a wide range of compensation management and salary survey products. The information is updated monthly, and there are some unique filters that aren’t available on other sites, such as salary views based on performance and management level.
With a score of 3.78 out of 5, Salary.com comes in fourth place, following closely behind the BLS. Its robust comparison tools with unique filters, multiple salary report options, and ease of use earned this provider high marks. It scored the lowest in pricing because while it has a free-to-use salary calculator, you have to pay extra if you want to download the report. Plus, many of its job pricing and salary comparison tools are paid solutions.
Salary.com’s single job report (Source: Salary.com)
Salary.com’s online salary calculator (Source: Salary.com)
Salary.com Pricing
Salary.com has several free-to-use solutions like its online salary calculator with unique filters, including HR metrics and benefits survey data that you can download at no cost. For its paid options, Salary.com has different products available at various price points:
- CompAnalyst (compensation software): Custom-priced
- Salary Wizard Professional (salary data subscription)
- Monthly subscription: $499 for one data scope
- Add-ons: $399 per month for each additional data scope
- Industry surveys and data sets: $995–$4,975 per report
- Personal salary report (for employees): $29.95–$79.95
- Job valuation reports
- One report credit: $245
- Three report credits: $661
- Five report credits: $1,041
- Seven report credits: $1,372
- 10 report credits: $1,837
- 15 report credits: $2,573
Salary.com Features
- Extensive database: Salary.com has a large database of employer-reported pay and benefits information with 800 million data points and compensation data that covers more than 4,000 benchmark jobs.
- Unique filters: Salary.com offers unique filters that the other salary comparison tools in this guide don’t have. Apart from location, education, and years of work experience data filters, you can sort salary data by work performance levels, reporting lines, and number of direct reports. The Performance filter applies standardized categories—such as “excellent,” “above expectations,” and “poor”—to each position. This would be most helpful perhaps not for determining what to offer when hiring employees but when identifying promotion potential and pay raises during annual performance reviews. On the other hand, the “Reports To” option adds the immediate manager title to filtering capabilities.
- Salary and benefits comparison data: You get a comprehensive salary data range that shows averages and quartile percentages—enabling you to see the selected position’s wage distribution at 10%, median (50%), and up to 90% percentiles. Bonuses and benefits data are also provided, and, unlike Indeed, it shows the employer’s expected contribution cost per benefit (such as health insurance, pension, and Social Security).
- Multiple data sets and survey options: Salary.com has a range of choices to fit every person’s or business’ budget. At more than 4,000 benchmarked positions, it isn’t as extensive as Payscale’s 15,000 positions and ZipRecruiter’s 35,000 job titles, but Salary.com provides employer-reported data—which tends to be of higher quality—so it’s a sizable, quality dataset. It also allows you to choose between one-off analysis and ongoing searches.
Salary.com Drawbacks
While it has a great data set, some of Salary.com’s reporting tools look a bit dated. Also, its variety of products and services is a bit confusing to navigate. It would be better if it was all laid out in a simpler presentation.
Payscale: Best for Businesses Looking to Create Custom Compensation Scenarios
Payscale
Overall Score: 3.56
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Has a compensation scenario builder
- Wide range of survey and compensation management solutions
- Offers products with robust employee- and employer-reported data
What's Missing
- Pricing isn’t transparent
- Differences between Payscale’s products can be difficult to understand
- “Price a job” results aren’t downloadable
Payscale Pricing
- “Price a Job” tool: free
- Compensation management and salary survey solutions and services: Custom-priced
Payscale is an easy-to-use tool that includes robust employee- and employer-reported data. Like Salary.com, it has a wide range of compensation management and survey tools, although Payscale lets you build your own compensation scenarios in case you need to create an organization unit with new positions or a completely new business. This allows you to get a holistic idea of your staffing costs, more so than the other salary comparison tools in this guide. Plus, the reports are simple and easy to understand, but the plethora of job titles can make it difficult to get the right title comparison.
It scored 3.56 out of 5 in our evaluation, with perfect marks in comparison tools and ratings of 3 and up in reporting capabilities and ease of use. However, the non-transparent pricing of its paid salary survey solutions and services contributed to its low scores.
Payscale’s Free “Price a Job” Report (Source: Payscale)
Payscale’s job details report show popular skills for the selected position, including the applicable pay for each skill. (Source: Payscale)
Payscale Pricing
While you can use its “Price a Job” tool at no cost, you have to contact Payscale if you want pricing information about its paid products such as Insight Labs, Benchmark, Payfactors, MarketPay, and compensation surveys.
Payscale Features
- Robust dataset: Payscale has a comprehensive database with 65 million salary profiles, 15,000 job titles, 3,000 skill types, and 6,000 industries—larger than any of the salary comparison tools we reviewed. And depending on the Payscale product that you get, you are granted access to either employee- or employer-reported salary data.
- Multiple filters: While it doesn’t have Salary.com’s performance and management level filters, you can sort data by job title, work experience, region, and industry. It also shows job satisfaction ratings, basic benefits and bonuses, skills that impact salaries, and a gender percentage breakdown for the selected position.
- Feature-rich solution suite: Payscale has a wide range of solutions for building and managing your company’s compensation package and strategies. In addition to salary research tools, it has a cloud-based compensation management software and an online job description manager to help you store and create position descriptions. This is critical when doing salary comparisons and surveys as it will help you find perfect matches to your selected jobs.
- Compensation scenario builder: Included in its Benchmark solution is the capability to create compensation scenarios to help you check market data and pay trends. This makes business and organization planning a little bit easier as it enables you to get a holistic view of salary costs in case you have plans to set up a new business venture or enhance your organization structure by adding positions.
Payscale Drawbacks
Like Salary.com, it can be difficult to understand differences between Payscale’s products—it has Benchmark, MarketPay, Insight Labs, and other compensation datasets. All appear to be market comparison products. Also, with so many job titles in the database (15,000 choices), matching position titles to your specific roles can be tricky.
LinkedIn Salary: Best for LinkedIn Recruiters & Users
LinkedIn Salary
Overall Score: 3.54
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Simple to use
- Free, provided you share your pay details (LinkedIn, in turn, protects the privacy of members who provided salary data)
- Shows top-paying companies and locations for selected position
What's Missing
- Salary data is employee-reported; some positions may have minimal information especially if only a handful of employees have shared pay details
- Limited data filters
- Benefits details not available
- Salary comparison result isn’t downloadable
LinkedIn Salary Pricing
- Non-premium members: Free, if you submit your salary information to LinkedIn
- Premium subscription (for employees): $59.99 per month
- LinkedIn Recruiter Lite (for employers and recruiters): $139.99 per month
LinkedIn Salary provides salary insights for your selected position—enabling you to better understand factors that may impact pay. Unlike the other providers in this guide, its data is primarily from information anonymously provided by its employee members. However, it’s great for recruiters who are using LinkedIn to find qualified candidates since they don’t have to switch tools when checking prevailing market rates for positions. Plus, its salary comparison tool is simple to use and understand.
In our evaluation, LinkedIn Salary earned an overall rating of 3.54 out of 5. Its free and simple-to-use tools that show base salary details based on education level, company size, and other data points contributed to its high scores. However, its lack of downloadable salary comparison reports prevented it from ranking higher on our list.
LinkedIn Salary’s pay comparison report (Source: LinkedIn Salary)
LinkedIn Salary Pricing
LinkedIn Salary is free when you submit your own pay data as an employee. Those on a Premium subscription ($59.99 per month) can access LinkedIn Salary without having to provide their salary details online. Employers and recruiters who are on a LinkedIn Recruiter Lite plan ($139.99 per month) can also use its salary research tools.
LinkedIn Salary Features
- Robust salary data: Aside from a pay range, LinkedIn Salary shows the base salaries on a per category basis. These categories include business size, industry, education, field of study, location, and top paying companies. While it indicates the estimated base salary with additional compensation (like bonuses), details about basic benefits are not included.
- Data filters: LinkedIn Salary lets you filter pay data by industry and years of work experience. It doesn’t have the robust selection of filters that Payscale, Salary.com, and the BLS offer.
- Competitor analysis: Like Indeed, you have visibility into the companies that provide competitive salaries for the position you’re doing salary research on.
LinkedIn Salary Drawbacks
Because LinkedIn Salary relies on employee-reported data, it’s potentially subject to inaccurate reporting by those who just want access to its salary comparison tools. It would be better if its pay information is supplemented with employer-reported data or salary details from job postings on its site. Also, it’s good for one-off analysis, but not for a lot of positions or tracking salary trends over time.
Tips to Using Salary Comparison Tools
Conducting salary research is a critical process in creating your company’s compensation program. It helps ensure that you’re paying employees at par with market rates, enabling you to attract qualified candidates and improve employee retention as well. Regardless of which salary comparison tool you use, here are a few key things you should do.
How We Chose the Best Salary Comparison Tools
We looked at several salary comparison tools, comparing each solution’s data sources and the types of pay information supplied. We also considered other features like downloadable reports, the amount of data available, and ease of use. And while most have free salary research tools, we checked whether it offers a paid version that’s affordably priced.
Click through the tabs below for a more detailed breakdown of our evaluation criteria.
40%
Comparison Tools
25%
Pricing
20%
Reporting
15%
Ease of use
40% of Overall Score
Providers with a large database and those with data filtering capabilities were rated favorably. We also looked at the data source (whether employer- or employee-reported or both) and if the salary information provided includes benefits and bonuses as well as average pay and salary range details. Both Salary.com and Payscale received perfect marks here due to their comprehensive databases, robust tools, and multiple compensation report options. However, Payscale’s job title inventory is larger than that of Salary.com—the former has 15,000 job titles while the latter has 4,000 benchmark jobs.
25% of Overall Score
20% of Overall Score
Salary comparison reports should be downloadable and easy to understand. Salary.com and Payscale scored the highest in this criteria—both tied at 3.88 out of 5.
15% of Overall Score
We gave higher points to tools that have intuitive interfaces and considered whether or not users will need to spend a lot of time learning how to navigate through their features. We also checked if the tools have a mobile-friendly platform and offer help options such as online manuals, video tutorials, and live support. Among the six providers that made our list, only Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and LinkedIn Salary received scores of 4 and up in this criterion.
*Percentages of overall score
Bottom Line
Regardless of your company size and the type of business you have, you should be using salary comparison tools to determine whether or not your salary package is on par with the market. Having access to up-to-date salary data also helps you create compensation strategies for attracting new hires and retaining current employees. Some even provide insights on HR best practices such as when hiring qualified candidates, onboarding new hires, and more.
We found that the Bureau of Labor Statistics offers the best value for money. It’s free to use with a rich data set that comes from nationwide surveys run by the government. The salary ranges for positions, multiple filters, and different data points included (like salary quartiles, pay by years of work experience, and extensive industry coverage) are also super helpful. You can even download its reports and charts in various file formats—all at no cost.
Get started with the BLS’s salary research tools today.
