VOL · 04
ED · 2026.01
N = 1,200
±2.4%
Cohort HR / Research
Research · 2026 EditionPublished Jan 14, 2026

The 2026 State of Hybrid
Workforce Compensation.

1,200 companies. 47 pages. 8 sections. The most current benchmark data on how teams actually pay people in a hybrid world — pay bands, equity, benefits, geographic differentials, and what's actually correlated with retention.

Cohort HR · ResearchVol. 04
47
pages
State of
Hybrid
Workforce
Compensation
2026 / EDITION 04
1,200 COS47 PAGES8 SECTIONS
1,200
Companies surveyed
47
Pages of analysis
8
Sections, fully cited
ATLAS ROBOTICSMERIDIAN LABSFERN & WICKNORTHWINDOBSIDIAN/HQPARADIGMPIVOT WORKSRHIZOMESAILRACKSTRATAVANTA POINTVESPERATLAS ROBOTICSMERIDIAN LABSFERN & WICKNORTHWINDOBSIDIAN/HQPARADIGMPIVOT WORKSRHIZOMESAILRACKSTRATAVANTA POINTVESPER

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Five findings
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Engineering teams under 50 people pay 8% more in base salary but 60% less in equity value at exit.

FIG. 01
SECTION 03
$171K$185KBASE · SR. ENG$850K$340KEQUITY · 4YR200+ EMP25–50 EMPSource · p. 22, Section 3 →

31% of small teams cluster at the $50–$150 monthly stipend.

FIG. 02
22%NONE18%<$50/MO31%$50–15019%$150–30010%>$300Source · p. 31 →

Equity variance in the under-50 cohort is huge — 90th percentile is 4× the median.

FIG. 03
SECTION 03
$0$1M$2M$4M$8M+200+ EMP MEDIAN $850K25–50 EMP MEDIAN $340KSource · p. 24, Section 3 →

Comp transparency correlates with retention more than any other variable we measured.

FIG. 04
SECTION 06
OPAQUEFULLY PUBLISHEDCOMPENSATION TRANSPARENCY →Source · p. 38, Section 6 →

Most companies pay remote-US at major-metro rates. The cliff is at Remote-LATAM, the only cohort below 75% of SF.

FIG. 05 · SECTION 07 · INDEXED, SF=100
SAN FRANCISCO100%NEW YORK96%SEATTLE94%AUSTIN86%DENVER82%ATLANTA78%REMOTE-US88%REMOTE-LATAM52%Source · p. 41, Section 7 →
About the research

Built on 1,200 first-party responses, not scraped salaries.

Cohort HR runs the largest first-party comp benchmark in the mid-market. We survey HR and finance leads directly, weight responses for representativeness, and publish methodology and confidence intervals alongside every finding.

1,200
Companies / Aug–Oct '25
62%
In the 25–200 band
USD
Normalized to Oct '25
±2.4%
Margin on headline figures
  1. 01Direct survey to verified HR / finance leads — no scraped data.
  2. 02Stratified weighting across geography, headcount, and stage.
  3. 03All comp figures cross-checked against payroll exports where available (38% of respondents).
  4. 04Open dataset on request for academic use; full methodology pp. 44–47.
Maren Okonkwo, Head of Research

"The thing that surprised me this year wasn't the dollar figures. It was that how companies talk about pay matters more than how much they pay. Transparency outperforms generosity on every retention cut we ran."

Maren Okonkwo · Head of ResearchCohort HR
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