Is Salary.com profitable?

Unknown; Salary.com is private with no audited financials. Third-party revenue estimates conflict wildly, ranging from about $145.3M (2025 estimate) to $224.2M to $250M-$380M (unverified), so profitability cannot be confirmed as of mid-2026.

Accel-KKR, a private equity firm, has owned Salary.com since a secondary buyout on October 4, 2022. Before that, founder Kent Plunkett reacquired it from IBM in January 2016 with H.I.G. Capital and Prudential Capital as co-investors.

Could AI replace Salary.com?

Contested. Salary.com's proprietary employer-reported survey data (company says 10,000+ organizations, 30,000+ participants, as of March 2026) and payroll integrations resist generic AI, but routine benchmarking and job-description generation are exposed to LLM substitution.

Is Salary.com laying off employees?

No, headcount is growing. Revelio Labs reported about 1,334 employees as of December 2025, up 11.2% year-over-year from 1,192 in 2024, with growth increasingly concentrated in the Philippines (41.4% of workforce).

Who is Salary.com's biggest competitor?

It's contested from multiple directions: Workday and UKG bundle compensation modules into broader HCM suites, Mercer and Willis Towers Watson dominate enterprise data prestige, and AI-native entrant SalaryCube markets daily-updated data as of March 2026 without survey participation.

What is Salary.com's newest AI product?

Max, an autonomous-agent AI model with real-time market intelligence, launched March 31, 2026. The company describes it as built on a proprietary ontology, positioned as the flagship capability of its CompAnalyst AI Suite.

Job boards and HR platforms · subsidiary of Accel-KKR · United States

Salary.com

salary.com ↗

Compensation benchmarking and pay-software vendor for HR and comp teams.

Protection under test

Assessed 22 July 2026 · Evidence as of 22 July 2026

Something worth protecting exists and is being tested right now.

On the recordSince 22 July 2026 · Checkable from June 2026 · Every call on the record Checkpoint: EU Pay Transparency Directive takes full effect, testing demand for Pay Equity Suite versus rival moves

The call

Salary.com has real data and integration advantages but sits squeezed between HCM giants and AI-native upstarts, with no independent proof yet that its new AI tools are holding customers.

Salary.com collects salary information from thousands of companies and helps employers figure out fair pay and follow pay equity laws. The company has built up a real dataset over years and integrations with payroll systems that would be work to replace, but it faces pressure from two sides: massive HR software companies like Workday and UKG that bundle pay tools into their platforms, and scrappy new AI startups like SalaryCube that claim to offer pay benchmarks faster and cheaper. The biggest wildcard is whether new EU pay transparency laws starting in 2026 will force companies to buy specialized compliance tools like Salary.com's, or whether that same push just gives Workday and UKG an opening to bundle pay equity features into their already-standard software and squeeze Salary.com out.

Why

AI pressure: SalaryCube and other AI-native real-time comp-data entrants. They pitch daily-updated pay benchmarks with no survey participation, cutting into Salary.com's core data pitch for cheaper deals. Could AI do the core job? Unlikely.

Bigger players: Workday and UKG. Both bundle comp planning into their HR suites and could add native pay data, pulling mid-market customers away from Salary.com entirely. Could a giant copy it? Probably.

What protects it. Its employer-reported survey dataset from over 10,000 organizations and deep payroll integrations are hard to replace for audit-grade pay decisions.

What would change this call

Workday or UKG announces native, non-planning comp benchmarking data shipped in base HCM suite. Bundlers absorbing Salary.com's mid-market niche without needing a standalone vendor.
A named customer publicly switches from Salary.com to Mercer, WTW, or a bundled HCM suite. Direct evidence of customer loss rather than inferred structural risk.
EU Pay Transparency Directive (June 2026) deadline passes with reports of vendor selection activity. Shows whether compliance demand favors Salary.com's Pay Equity Suite or incumbents.

Key numbers

Headcount up 11.2% YoY to 1,334 (Dec 2025)
41.4% of staff based in Philippines (Jun 2026)
Estimated revenue ~$145.3M, though estimates vary widely (Dec 2025)

Named risks

AI product claims (Max, CompAnalyst AI Suite) rest on press releases with only one named customer, no independent retention data. Severity: high
Squeezed between Workday/UKG bundled HCM suites above and AI-native cheap entrants like SalaryCube below. Severity: high
Revenue estimates conflict wildly across third parties ($145M to $380M), no audited financials available. Severity: medium
PE ownership under Accel-KKR since October 2022 with no disclosed refinancing; eventual exit terms for common equity uncertain. Severity: medium
EU Pay Transparency Directive full effect (June 2026) could intensify incumbent competition as much as it drives demand. Severity: medium

Rivals, as read in July 2026

Rival	Direction	Evidence
Workday	gaining on	Bundles native comp-planning modules into HCM suite, threatening mid-market share (2026)
UKG	gaining on	Bundles compensation modules into broader HCM platform, per 2026 vendor comparisons
Mercer, Willis Towers Watson	contesting	Hold enterprise data prestige at high end, unaffected by Salary.com's mid-market push
Payscale	contesting	Consolidated via Payfactors merger (2021), CURO and Agora acquisitions (2021-2022)
SalaryCube	gaining on	Markets daily-updated comp data without survey participation as faster, cheaper (2026-03)

Questions people ask

Is Salary.com profitable?: Unknown; Salary.com is private with no audited financials. Third-party revenue estimates conflict wildly, ranging from about $145.3M (2025 estimate) to $224.2M to $250M-$380M (unverified), so profitability cannot be confirmed as of mid-2026.
Who owns Salary.com?: Accel-KKR, a private equity firm, has owned Salary.com since a secondary buyout on October 4, 2022. Before that, founder Kent Plunkett reacquired it from IBM in January 2016 with H.I.G. Capital and Prudential Capital as co-investors.
Could AI replace Salary.com?: Contested. Salary.com's proprietary employer-reported survey data (company says 10,000+ organizations, 30,000+ participants, as of March 2026) and payroll integrations resist generic AI, but routine benchmarking and job-description generation are exposed to LLM substitution.
Is Salary.com laying off employees?: No, headcount is growing. Revelio Labs reported about 1,334 employees as of December 2025, up 11.2% year-over-year from 1,192 in 2024, with growth increasingly concentrated in the Philippines (41.4% of workforce).
Who is Salary.com's biggest competitor?: It's contested from multiple directions: Workday and UKG bundle compensation modules into broader HCM suites, Mercer and Willis Towers Watson dominate enterprise data prestige, and AI-native entrant SalaryCube markets daily-updated data as of March 2026 without survey participation.
What is Salary.com's newest AI product?: Max, an autonomous-agent AI model with real-time market intelligence, launched March 31, 2026. The company describes it as built on a proprietary ontology, positioned as the flagship capability of its CompAnalyst AI Suite.

Timeline

2026-06-11Salary.com wins 2026 BWWC Wage Equity Impact Award for pay equity progress
2026-03-31Launches Max, an autonomous-agent AI model with real-time market intelligence
2025-09-09Introduces CompAnalyst AI Suite, public/private beta branded Salary.ai
2025-04-21Unveils agentic AI platform for HR and compensation at WorldatWork
2023-11-07Acquires CompXL maker HCR Software for enterprise incentive-comp planning
2022-10-04Accel-KKR acquires Salary.com in secondary buyout
2016-01-07Founder Kent Plunkett reacquires Salary.com from IBM with H.I.G. Capital, Prudential
2012IBM acquires Kenexa for $1.3B, folding Salary.com into Smarter Workforce unit
2010Kenexa acquires Salary.com for approximately $80M
2007Salary.com IPOs on NASDAQ under ticker SLRY

Revision history

22 July 2026

First assessed. Protection under test. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.

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