Kruze's benchmark is real payroll data, not a founder survey

The record

Kruze Consulting, an accounting firm serving venture-backed startups, maintains a Startup CEO Salary Report, first published in 2018 and shown as last updated on 3 September 2026 when retrieved for this note on 16 September 2026. The report states its figures come from the actual payroll systems of Kruze Consulting's VC-backed startup clients, describing roughly 800 U.S.-based companies, with the underlying data anonymized and aggregated before analysis. Its current edition states an average CEO salary of $165,000 across all stages and a median of $159,000, with seed-stage CEOs averaging $153,000, Series A CEOs $203,000 and Series B CEOs $216,000. A companion document, the Startup C-Suite Salary Guide, published 10 August 2026, applies the same method to chief technology and chief operating officers, reporting average CTO compensation of $167,000 and average COO compensation of $167,000 across stages, with seed-stage figures of $155,000 and $144,000 respectively.

What the documents establish

Both documents state explicitly that their figures come from real payroll records rather than self-reported survey responses, and both make the same argument for why that distinction matters: a payroll-based sample does not lag the market the way a survey can, and it does not over-represent whichever companies happen to answer a questionnaire. That is a meaningful, stated methodological choice, verifiable from the documents themselves, though it is still Kruze's own client roster rather than a market-wide census; a firm's client base tends to share characteristics, such as fundraising through networks that refer clients to Kruze, that may not describe every venture-backed company equally.

The operating read

A benchmark built from actual paychecks is a stronger evidentiary basis than one built from a voluntary online form, and Kruze's own framing of that distinction is a fair one to apply elsewhere: when comparing any compensation benchmark, ask what underlying record produced the number. Editorially, a founder setting a CEO or executive salary should treat Kruze's stage-based averages as a reference point drawn from a specific accounting firm's client base, adjusted for the reader's own sector, geography and funding stage, rather than as a market-clearing price.

What to check before you decide

Before setting compensation against any published benchmark, check the following.

• Does the benchmark's client or respondent base share your company's stage, sector and geography closely enough to be a fair comparison?
• Is the underlying data real payroll or account records, or self-reported survey input, and does the publisher say which?
• When was the figure last updated, and does the version being cited match the current one rather than an earlier snapshot?

Kruze's own disclosure of its data source is what makes its benchmark checkable at all; the same check is worth applying to any compensation figure before it sets a number in an offer letter.