Why Are Salary Ranges So Wide?

Bars scaled to 100%

Share of the variation in range width explained by each factor on its own (eta squared), over 62,874 US postings at employers with at least 30 ranges.

Width is (maximum minus minimum) divided by the range midpoint, over US postings with both ends between $10,000 and $2,000,000. Each source is shown separately because job boards format pay differently; comparing families inside one board removes that. Within either board, families sit within a few points of each other, while employers within the same board range from about 6% to over 80%.

Source: Seeker job corpus, 103,645 active job postings, snapshot 2026-10-05. seekerscore.com/insights/salary-range-width-2026

Disclosure is not the same as information

We have published how often postings disclose pay. This page asks the next question: when a posting does show a range, how much does it narrow things down? Half of all ranges span less than 32.5% of their midpoint, roughly $85,000 to $115,000. One in six spans more than 50%, and about one in fifty spans more than 80%, where the top of the range is more than twice the bottom.

The employer sets the width

If range width reflected how uncertain a role is, it would vary by field or level. It barely does. Job family explains 0.7% of the variation and the seniority word in the title explains 0.7%. Knowing which employer posted the job explains 62%. Most large employers apply one width policy across nearly every posting, whatever the role, so the same company tends to post narrow ranges for interns and directors alike, and another tends to post wide ranges for both.

Senior roles do not get wider ranges

A common assumption is that senior ranges are wider because senior pay is more negotiable. In this data the median width is about 32% to 33% for junior, senior, manager and director titles. Staff and principal titles run higher (37% and 40%), but most of those postings come from one large job source whose ranges are about 40% wide at every level, so we do not read that as a seniority effect. We tested and retracted a similar claim in an earlier analysis, where an apparent widening with seniority turned out to be a difference between job boards rather than levels.

What this means when you read a posting

A wide range is usually a statement about the company's pay policy, not about the role. If a range spans $90,000 to $180,000, the posting is unlikely to tell you where you would land, and it is reasonable to ask the recruiter for the band for your level and location early. A narrow range is more likely to describe the actual offer.

How we measured it (and what we did not claim)

We used every active US posting in our corpus with both a minimum and maximum salary between $10,000 and $2,000,000, after removing ranges where the minimum equals the maximum, the maximum is below the minimum, or the values look hourly or monthly. That leaves 103,645 postings and 94,800 distinct ranges. Federal postings are excluded because they follow pay grades. We sampled 3,656 postings and confirmed the stored range appears in the posting text for 83% to 100% of postings on the direct employer sources. Some employers post one national range that covers many locations, which makes their ranges wide by construction; we do not claim any employer's range is unfair, only how wide it is. Variance explained is computed on employers with at least 30 ranges.

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