This location-agnostic pay company database was originally published on January 14, 2022, and was last updated on April 13, 2022. If you notice a company missing from this page, please let us know via [email protected]!
Due to the COVID pandemic, more and more companies are going remote. Remote work means employers can hire employees from anywhere.
However, many companies have chosen to use location-based pay meaning compensation packages take into account employee location. This can make sense as companies can hire remote employees where the cost of living, and therefore salary expectations, are lower.
For example, Google's internal salary calculator allows employees to see the effects of a move to a new location. A Google spokesperson told Reuters that "compensation packages have always been determined by location, and we always pay at the top of the local market based on where an employee works from."
In contrast, some companies are choosing to base pay solely on the value of work. They reward hard work and pay employees the same regardless of where they work from.
This is known as location-agnostic pay.
What is location-agnostic pay?
The location-agnostic pay model means where you work has no impact on what you are paid. In other words, employees in the same role are paid the same, independent of location. There are two types of location-agnostic pay models:
- Worldwide: People in the same job are paid the same, regardless of where in the world they live.
- Countrywide: People in the same job and the same country are paid the same, independent of where they live in that country. For example, everyone in the same job in the U.S. is paid the same, but their salary could be different to people who do the same job in a different country.
What's great about a location-agnostic approach is that it's simple to explain. Unlike location-based pay where your location factors into what you're paid, location-agnostic pay doesn't change the pay scale based on a cost of living calculator.
1. Airteam
Airteam are an independent software product company with a strong focus on people, process, and outcome. You can work from anywhere in Australia and they'll pay you the same as someone else in the same role.
They love remote work as it gives their crew flexibility, autonomy, and more time with their loved ones, less time commuting, while living where they want!
Learn more about Airteam, Airteam's tech stack, Airteam employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Airteam.
2. Basecamp
Basecamp builds an all-in-one toolkit for working remotely. For more than two decades, Basecamp has been proving that you don't need to be a big company to have a big impact. Their team created Ruby on Rails, wrote a number of influential and NYT best-selling books, and have been pioneers of remote work well before it was popular.
Basecamp's compensation strategy is simple. They have a location-agnostic pay structure where everyone in the same role at the same level is paid the same. There are no negotiated salaries or raises. Equal work gets equal pay.
Raises happen automatically, once per year, when they review market rates. Their target is to pay everyone at the company in the 90th percentile, or top 10% of the San Francisco market rates, regardless of their role or where they live. So if you work in customer support, operations, software engineering, or design, you'll be paid in the top 10% for that position.
Learn more about Basecamp, Basecamp's tech stack, Basecamp employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Basecamp.
3. Cal.com
Cal.com's is an open startup, which means it operates fully transparent and shares its salaries and core metrics. It's on a mission to connect a billion people by 2031 through calendar scheduling.
In a blog post Peer Richelsen, co-CEO and co-founder of Cal.com, outlines why they chose to pay global salaries (every person of the same seniority and title gets paid the same, regardless of location):
We believe your compensation at any organization should be based purely on meritocracy and what you bring to the table. No manager should know, nor care about your living standards and personal lifestyle.
Our company was born on the web and lives on the web. Our team is fully distributed and works online. We have no physical headquarter and don’t plan to have one. We’re all citizens of the web and thereby equal.
Don’t let people tell you otherwise, but your compensation will always be transactional. And the fairest transaction is money for work.
If the work is of equal quality, it is only fair to pay equal dinero.
We don’t care if you wrote the line of code in Costa Rica, Sweden or Portugal.
Work = Money.
Learn more about Cal.com, Cal.com's tech stack, Cal.com employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Cal.com.
4. Cogsy
Cogsy is a simple yet powerful action-taking tool that promotes operational excellence for DTC brands. They turn data into accurate forecasts for retail businesses, so they can make better decisions about inventory and free up capital to grow better, faster.
They offer location-agnostic pay and look forward to hiring the top talent from all over the world and backgrounds.
Learn more about Cogsy, Cogsy's tech stack, Cogsy employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Cogsy.
5. Daily
Daily is real-time video for developers. Their APIs make it as fast and flexible as possible for teams to build with video calls. One developer can add video chat to any site or app in minutes, on a global infrastructure, and with features for every use case.
Daily level based on years of relevant experience. Each level has one salary and equity and are the same across roles. Compensation also is the same rate regardless of location:
- Level 1: 1-2 years $90,000
- Level 2: 3-4 years $125,000
- Level 3: 5-6 yrs $155,000
- Level 4: 7-8 yrs $180,000
- Level 5: 9-10 yrs $210,000
- Level 6: 11-14 yrs $240,000
- Level 7: 15+ yrs $270,000
Learn more about Daily, Daily's tech stack, Daily employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Daily.
6. Expensify
Expensify keeps money moving. More than 10 million people around the globe use Expensify's preaccounting platform to reimburse expenses, manage business credit cards, generate invoices, pay bills, and plan trips from one easy-to-use app.
Expensify were one of the first companies to pay a "global standard": everyone is competitively paid as if they live in San Francisco, no matter where you actually call home (or if you are a global nomad with no home at all).
This means you can work from anywhere you want, just take your laptop!
Learn more about Expensify, Expensify's tech stack, Expensify employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Expensify.
7. Files.com
Files.com is a unique cloud platform that empowers organization, collaboration, and insightful file logistics. They believe that files matter and that data should be secure, accessible, and easy to understand.
The business is fully remote, profitable, and fast-growing with more than 2,000 enterprise customers, small businesses, and governmental entities.
They've been able to achieve a rare combination of high double-digit annual growth and industry-leading profitability by recruiting a highly skilled team. That's why if you choose to work at Files.com you can earn a "Bay Area" salary from anywhere.
Their pay is competitive with the top software companies in the world, with a generous base salary plus equity compensation.
Learn more about Files.com, Files.com's tech stack, Files.com employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Files.com.
8. Float
Float is on a mission to help teams make the most of their team. They believe that smart time management empowers you to do the best work of your life, while still having a life.
Float is the resource management platform that gives you the most accurate view of your team’s capacity, so you can plan, track, and optimize how work is assigned. Built for teams big and small across all industries, the world’s top companies rely on Float to manage their resources more efficiently and deliver great work.
Float's location agnostic working style means they benchmark salaries based on contribution, not location. All salaries are benchmarked to 90% of the median San Francisco salary based on third-party industry data provided by Radford. For non-US team members, they also track the actual amount paid to you after exchange conversion rates and record any differences. Negative accrued balances are compensated every six months.
Learn more about Float, Float's tech stack, Float employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Float.
9. Follow Up Boss
Follow Up Boss makes real estate lead conversion and sales follow up more efficient and automated resulting in their clients making more sales and having the capacity to grow their business in a calm organized way.
The company is self-funded, profitable and independent, which gives them the freedom to focus on the success of their customers and team.
Their career framework pays in the top 10% no matter where you live!
Learn more about Follow Up Boss, Follow Up Boss' tech stack, Follow Up Boss employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Follow Up Boss.
10. Guilded
Guilded helps online game players find a competent group. It slims things down to what most gaming guilds might need and enables players or teams to build tools that can help them recruit faster and play better.
Instead of tracking hours, they track impact and trust that everyone will work in whatever way makes them the happiest and most effective. So they have no restrictions on work hours or location, and offer competitive Bay Area salaries with generous equity, no matter where in the world you live.
Learn more about Guilded, Guilded's tech stack, Guilded employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Guilded.
11. Gumroad
Gumroad helps creators get paid for their work. To date, they've sent over $400,000,000 to creators. Their goal is simple: help creators and online entrepreneurs make more money.
You can get caught up on their company culture with these three blog posts:
- Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company
- No Meetings, No Deadlines, No Full-Time Employees
- The Creator-Owner Economy: Gumroad's "IPO"
Gumroad deprecated all location-based pay in December 2020, which means you will get paid the same salary no matter if you live in San Francisco, Bangalore, Lagos, or anywhere else! And most Gumroad employees are part-time, working on average 22 hours a week!
Learn more about Gumroad, Gumroad's tech stack, Gumroad employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Gumroad.
12. Harvest
Harvest is an independent software company that makes tools to help businesses run more smoothly. They believe that businesses only succeed by using their time intentionally. Their products support our customers through time tracking, reporting, and forecasting features.
Every Harvester with the same role expectations receives the same base pay. And they aim to pay at the top of the market (informed by third-party data) for all roles, even if you live somewhere that has lower labor costs.
Learn more about Harvest, Harvest tech stack, Harvest employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Harvest.
13. Help Scout
Help Scout is designed with your customers in mind. They help you provide email and live chat with a personal touch, and deliver help content right where your customers need it, all in one place, all for one low price.
Like many remote-first companies, Help Scout employees are paid based on a salary formula that's transparent to everyone in the company. For several years, the formula included a cost of living variable to determine a "fair market rate". This meant that people who lived in a city with a high cost of living would be paid more.
In 2018, they updated their salary formula and removed geography as a consideration. Nick Francis, Co-founder and CEO of Help Scout, outlined why he believes remote employees shouldn't be paid less based on geography:
It’s math — we should all know what we can afford to pay an employee to produce a certain type of work. If an employee working from Argentina, Ukraine, or South Africa is making a killing relative to the person delivering the exact same business value from New York City, it’s not the business’ concern — just as what they spend on an apartment is not our concern. I’m paying a price for a job to be done well and the value is the same to me.
Learn more about Help Scout, Help Scout's tech stack, Help Scout employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Help Scout.
14. Know Your Team
Know Your Team makes software that helps managers become better leaders. You can use their tool to hold effective one-on-one meetings, get honest feedback, share progress, and build team rapport.
Know Your Team is a smaller company who employs six remote workers who earn an average San Francisco salary regardless of where they live according to CTO Daniel Lopes.
Learn more about Know Your Team, Know Your Team's tech stack, Know Your Team employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Know Your Team.
15. Maybe
Maybe is building the next generation of financial & retirement planning tools. They're working to equip consumers with the resources they need to take control of their financial future.
Maybe hires people from anywhere in the world and has transparent salaries on all their job posts. They also offer a 3% raise every year, 10% annual equity bonus and a minimum vacation policy where they expect you to take at least 4 weeks off per year.
Learn more about Maybe, Maybe's tech stack, Maybe employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Maybe.
16. Optimism
Optimism is a low-cost and lightning-fast Ethereum L2 blockchain. It's open source, secure, permissionless, and decentralized.
Optimism is a Public Benefit Corporation, a for profit corporation that is obligated to balance the financial interests of our stockholders with the best interests of our community, and society.
Not only are they writing software that scales Ethereum technology, they're also scaling Ethereum values by creating the rails for highly impactful projects that don't have a business model to succeed.
Until the project is fully decentralized, they will be donating all profits from running a centralized sequencer towards scaling and sustaining public goods.
Salaries at Optimism are in the top 25% based on skills and experience, standardized to San Francisco rates and are location agnostic.
Learn more about Optimism, Optimism's tech stack, Optimism employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Optimism.
17. RevenueCat
RevenueCat makes it easy to implement and manage in-app subscriptions, analyze customer data, and grow recurring revenue on iOS, Android, and the web. The believe in equal for equal work. That means they pay all their team members, regardless of where they live, the same based on their role and level.
They also give new hires three options to choose from for their compensation package:
- Higher equity/lower salary
- Lower equity/higher salary
- Mid-range equity/mid-range salary
Right now, we pay in the 60th percentile of salaries in the San Francisco market for companies of a similar size and stage as them. And to ensure our employees get to keep the equity they’ve earned, we’ve also expanded our post-termination exercise window from the standard 90 days to 10 years.
Miguel Carranza, co-founder and CTO, of RevenueCat argued the case for location-independent salaries on their blog:
- The quality of the work is equivalent. We believe the best talent in the world doesn’t just live in Silicon Valley, and if the output is not compromised, why should salary be?
- Immigration can be a challenge. Not everyone wants to move to the US, and many can’t, due to travel restrictions or family obligations. As an immigrant myself, I know what the process entails, and trust me, it’s not fun.
- Keeping up with the competition. The best talent has access to high-paying remote jobs anyway, and we want to focus on talent density versus talent quantity.
- It’s simpler. Cost of living is very difficult to estimate. Should it be based on housing? Should it change for countries with government-subsidized healthcare?
- It’s part of our company mission. Ultimately, our mission is to help developers make more money. We want developers to be able to make a living doing what they love, no matter where they live. If we truly believe in this, why would we pay our engineers (and other employees) less money?
Learn more about RevenueCat, RevenueCat's tech stack, RevenueCat employee benefits, or find remote jobs at RevenueCat.
18. Sourcegraph
Sourcegraph builds universal code search for every developer and company so they can innovate faster. They help developers and companies with billions of lines of code create the software you use every day.
The Sourcegraph handbook has everything from their high-level strategy, product direction, and values, to documentation of business processes including messaging and engineering principles. It's public for everyone to read because they are open and transparent.
Sourcegraph do not take your location into account when determining cash and equity compensation. No matter where you live, you will get the same cash and equity compensation.
To ensure their compensation is competitive even for people in expensive cities, they target a high percentile (from our compensation benchmarks) across the board. They also publish and maintain internal compensation bands for every position they hire for. Recruiters and hiring managers are expected to adhere to these bands for all offers that go out, and to bring any out-of-band offers to People Ops before making them.
Learn more about Sourcegraph, Sourcegraph's tech stack, Sourcegraph employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Sourcegraph.
19. Toggl
Toggl is the shared brand for Track, Plan, and Hire. Three different products. Three related, but independent companies. All three companies share the same mission—to eliminate stress from the workplace.
Trust and respect are values mutually shared across all three companies. But each of Toggl’s companies nurtures its own culture, processes, and values.
Their amazing team works from 40+ countries around the globe and where you work has no impact on what you're paid.
Learn more about Toggl, Toggl's tech stack, Toggl employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Toggl.
20. Wildbit
Wildbit believes developers shouldn't spend time in the weeds of process, infrastructure, and communication. Their products remove that pain, allowing you to design, code, and ship brilliant software.
As of July 1st 2021, the Wildbit team is paid consistently regardless of where they live. They chose to benchmark their compensation to Philadelphia. The reason they chose Philadelphia over San Francisco is because they don't compete the same way that VC-backed companies compete. Natalie Nagele, co-founder and CEO, wrote in the announcement post:
You don’t come to Wildbit simply to make a ton of money and then leave for the next place with more savings and a lottery ticket. You come to Wildbit for a bunch of other things. We run a profitable, calm, 32-hour work week company. We have strong values and principles. You’d work with wonderful human beings that will support you to do the work of your life, slowly and patiently. No politics. No unnecessary drama.
So when we set off to come up with a compensation strategy, Leia modeled out San Francisco, along with Philadelphia as a comparison. Philly is not only the city where Chris and I live, but it’s also the city where the business is currently incorporated. Plus, Philly is competitive when it comes to compensation, sitting in the next top tier after the big tech hubs of San Francisco and NYC.
This resulted in 62% of the team receiving an adjustment to a higher salary based on the new location-agnostic policy.
If you're a people leader curious about location-agnostic pay, Wildbit has also published a fantastic guide on how to decide if location-agnostic pay is right for you.
Learn more about Wildbit, Wildbit's tech stack, Wildbit employee benefits, or find remote jobs at Wildbit.
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