What is a salary range?

What 9,550 job postings show

Every number comes from pay ranges employers posted on their own job boards. Typical means the median.

1. Half of ranges span $48,000 or more

   That's the median gap between the bottom and the top of one posting's range: $48,184.

2. The typical range runs from $135,000 to $190,000

   Those are the median bottom and the median top. These employers pay more than the US job market as a whole, so the dollar levels run high.

3. The top is about a third above the bottom

   In the typical posting, the top is 34% above the bottom. In 3 of 10 postings it's at least 50% above, and in 7% it's double or more.

4. Senior ranges are wider

   The median gap is $27,000 for entry-level titles, $40,000 for mid-level or unlabeled ones, $51,000 for senior titles and $69,000 for staff and principal titles.

5. Data & ML ranges are the widest

   Data & ML postings typically run from $166,000 to $240,000. Healthcare postings are the narrowest, from $100,000 to $130,000.

6. Many employers use round steps

   About 1 in 14 postings sets the top exactly 25% above the bottom. A third above, 38% above and 50% above come next.

What a posted range means for your offer

1. It's the employer's own estimate

   A posted range shows what the employer says it expects to pay for the job. It doesn't show where offers land inside it.

2. Salary range or salary band?

   A salary band is the range a company sets for a job level inside its own pay structure. The range in a posting is the one it publishes for a single opening.

3. Before the first call

   Have one number ready for the salary expectations question, with the posted range as your starting point.

   How to answer salary expectations →

4. After the offer

   Counter with one researched number and a reason tied to the job.

   How to negotiate salary after a job offer →

How we got the numbers

• Where. The public job feeds of 466 employer job boards hosted on Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby, read on October 5, 2026.
• What counts. US postings with an annual pay range in US dollars, from the board's pay field or, when that's empty, the first dollar range in the posting text. Left out: hourly pay, on-target earnings that include commission, other currencies, part-time, contract and temporary roles, and figures that aren't a plausible annual salary (under $15,000, over $2,000,000, or a top more than six times the bottom). Each posting counts once.
• Balance. No company counts for more than 25 postings in any job type, so a few large employers can't set the answer. That leaves 9,550 postings from 304 companies, out of 14,754. Without the cap, the median gap inside one posting would be $50,000 instead of $48,184.
• Checked by hand. 20 postings picked at random, each compared with the range on the live posting. All 20 matched.
• Limits. These are employers that use these three job boards, many of them tech and venture-backed companies, so pay levels run higher than in the US as a whole and some job types are thin. A posted range is what the employer published, not what anyone was paid.
• The data. Download the CSV: medians by job type, level and source. No company names and no single postings.