How much do product managers make?
Ex-Googler reveals 24 top product manager salaries.
Product manager compensation is confusing.
A bunch of websites are making salary information more transparent, and recent laws in California and New York are forcing companies to be more candid with job seekers about pay scales. With all this information at your fingertips, you’d think researching compensation for product manager roles would be a breeze… but it’s not. The data is confusing and hard to trudge through.
In this guide, we’ll explore the top product manager salaries from 24 leading tech companies, explain why PM salary information online is so confusing, and recommend the best sources for doing your own research.
Product manager pay is obviously great to know if you're looking into this career, but it’s also important to know your worth as an experienced PM to be compensated fairly.
By the way, this topic was part of my recent guest lecture at MIT, and I’ll be sharing all the content from that talk here in this newsletter. Subscribe now so you don’t miss the rest of this Crash Course on Product Management.
Why is product manager comp so confusing?
Before getting into the top product manager salary data, let’s talk about why this research was so bleeping confusing. Several factors make most job websites unreliable when searching for product manager salaries.
The source of the data
Many job sites use unverified, crowdsourced information. Glassdoor forces you to enter your salary to search for other job salaries. People lie. As product managers, we know that forcing people to enter info to get something on the other side can be a recipe for bad user behavior.
Comprehensive.io is a great tool because companies in California and New York must now list base pay on job listings. Unfortunately, they aren’t required to list stock or bonus compensation, which can be more than base pay for many senior product manager roles. Many job postings may also be fake, as recruiters list jobs that don’t currently exist or are published to gain a large applicant pool for future and sometimes unrelated jobs.
Salary data sourced from tax documents may seem reliable, but it’s probably less helpful when researching high-paid roles like those in product management. For example, Intuit’s Mint Salary feature uses actual TurboTax tax returns to source salary data. But as you’ll see later in this post, with so many product managers at big companies making close to half-million dollar salaries, I doubt that the TurboTax data is comprehensive for the product manager role. There are a few data points on the high end, but unfortunately, many high-paid individuals do not use TurboTax and will rely on CPAs instead.
Misunderstanding the product manager role
Many salary sites don’t seem to understand the “product manager” role in tech and bundle in other unrelated functions when reporting salary ranges for product managers. Glassdoor, for example, lumps in “project manager” and lower-paying “PM specialist” jobs that are completely different from “product manager” jobs in tech.
Reporting in averages
Many sites report averages, which can be misleading because the average gets skewed wildly based on low and high outliers in the underlying dataset.
Because many sites poorly categorize tech product manager jobs, they end up including many non-product manager jobs in the data, skewing the average down. Some sites (at the time of this writing) are reporting the average product manager salary at $99K, $112K, and $115K because the low end of these datasets is $32K to $35K salaries, which are unrealistic for a product manager in tech.
On the flip side, many big tech companies pay their Group PMs, Directors, and VPs executive-level wages, and those skew the average up.
Total compensation varies widely by level
Product manager levels drastically change compensation. Some product management positions go up to executive levels. While on the low end, some companies don’t have entry-level product manager positions. To understand the averages, and even the medians, at a company, you have to look closely at the levels that exist in the org. This makes it difficult to compare summary metrics across companies.
Compensation in the form of stocks and bonuses is standard for higher-level roles, and the breakdown of total comp across base pay, stock, and bonus can vary widely by company and even by individual employee.
The best salary websites
We looked at all the major salary sites for this product manager compensation research. However, we relied heavily on only two that were the most trustworthy sources for product manager roles. And no, this post is not sponsored; we just think these two sites are great.
Levels.fyi – This site verifies W2 pay and has the most comprehensive breakdown and comparisons of product manager levels across companies.
6figr.com – This site uses payroll provider data and has over 5 million verified profiles.
If you’re doing your own salary research, be sure to check out these two sites.
Pro tips for doing your own research
Make sure you understand leveling when considering a new role. Find out what the scope and responsibility of each PM level in the company look like – you need this information for accurate comparisons of roles across companies. You can also check out Levels.fyi, for high-level comparisons, but you’ll want to ask about details to ensure you’re leveled appropriately.
Look at total compensation packages – job posts may report on salary only (sometimes called “base pay”), but many companies offer compensation packages that also include stock and bonus incentives, especially for more senior roles. Make sure you understand how these impact the total compensation for the position.
Remember that data points from executives or other high-level Product people can skew the average compensation at a company. The median can give a more real data point, and the distribution across levels will help you understand growth opportunities within the company.
Get advice from a tax or financial professional to understand the impacts of cash-based versus equity-based compensation.
Product manager compensation
Alright, now we’re ready to talk numbers. I know I know, this is what you’re actually here for… so let’s dive in. These are compensation data pulled in May 2023 from Levels.fyi and 6figr.com.
At the time of this writing, our two favorite sources reveal, the median total compensation for product managers in the US is around $200K.
Levels.fyi has the median product manager comp at $199K, with half of the product managers in their dataset earning between $147K and $270K.
6figr.com reports the median at $196K with 12,000 verified profiles, with the majority making between $100K and $300K.
The video above breaks down the product manager salaries at 24 top companies. Don’t skip the video; it’s fun. 😀 Or you can stare at the two tables below for a dizzying summary. 😵💫
Of course, all of these compensation stats are subject to change given the economy, the performance of each company, or an eccentric billionaire could buy any of these companies and totally disrupt employee compensation. Who knows what the future holds?
The sites listed above are great sources to dig into for your own research. Happy number-crunching! You’ve got this!