The Salary Survey Results Are In

We’ve finally run the numbers of our Salary Survey questionnaire from the other week, and the results are in: Yes, you need a raise. That’s why you’re reading this, right? Anyway, after you come back from talking to your boss or investors, take a look at our breakdown.

We got 91 responses in total, of which 60 were from Finland, 12 from Sweden, 6 from Denmark, 5 out of Estonia, 3 from Norway, 2 from Latvia, 2 from Russia, and one from Lithuania. Our sample size is way to small to be considered anywhere near scientific, but like our summer holiday survey, we’re happy to make sweeping generalisations out of thin air.

The overall average monthly salary in the Nordics and Baltic startup scene ended up at €2 949. Finland averaged out at €2 947, Denmark at €3 103, Sweden at €3 367, and Estonia at €1 500. Dmitri, our Estonian biz dev guy points out that the Estonian average salary is actually very reasonable given the price level. Within all responses, the standard deviation came out to €1 707.

The rest of the Nordic and Baltic countries we hesitate to comment on, because the sample size was way too small to really give any sort of actual picture and we would hate to accidentally allow someone to infer someone else’s salary.

After breaking down the responses by job title, we came up with the above chart. CEOs and Founders averaged at €3 034, marketing folks averaged at €2 858, Developers and Designers at €2 547, CXOs at 4 200, and other positions rang in at 3 500.

We also broke down the results by whether the startup they were working for was funded or not. Across the region, the funded average came out to €3 272 while the unfunded average was €2 498 a month. It’s good to be working with someone else’s money.

Here are the job positions broken down by whether the startup was funded or not. Interestingly, we found that wages are higher for every position in a funded company, except for the CEO. This may be due to the fact that our dataset included a couple unfunded CEOs who were somehow making a ton of money each month.

Some other notable facts: the highest salary of anyone who responded was €9 500 a month in a CEO position. And in the top ten highest salaries, seven were from Finland, and one each from Russia, Norway, and Sweden. It should be noted the high number from Finland is perhaps due to the fact that many more responses from Finland, allowing for a higher deviation.

As we look at these numbers, also remember that salary does not equal compensation; equity and other perks are other important variables in this game. But what do you make of this? Are the numbers about what you expected? What standards do you think should apply for determining founder and employee salary at a startup?

Top image CC liscensed by AWKWORDrap on Flickr.