Last updated: October 10, 2026

How to read a posted pay range

A listed range is the employer's own statement of what they expect to pay for the role. It is useful, but it is not an offer and not what people in the job earn today. Here is what it tells you, what it does not, and what to do when there is no range.

The short answer

• Treat the range as the employer's budget for the role at a given level and place. Where you land inside it depends on your experience and the level they hire at.
• Check whether the number is base salary, base plus bonus, or total compensation including equity. Postings are not consistent about this.
• Look for several ranges in one posting: many employers list one range per location or per level.
• If there is no range, ask for it in your first conversation. Some states require employers to list it; see the state-by-state guide.

How often postings list pay

In our October 2026 snapshot, 37.8% of postings list a pay range, out of 200,223 postings where we could check. In cities in the 13 places (12 states and the District of Columbia) that require a range in the posting, 65.7% do, against 24% in cities in states without such a law.

The same employers behave differently by state. Among 329 employers that post jobs in both kinds of state, 59.5% of their postings in states with a law list pay, against 24.7% elsewhere. 142 of those employers list pay more often where the law applies, 171 about as often, and 16 less often. The typical employer is 4 points apart, so the gap between the group averages comes mostly from a minority of employers and should not be read as the effect of the law.

Listed pay versus what people earn

A listed range and an official wage measure different things. Official wages (Bureau of Labor Statistics) are the median pay of everyone in an occupation in an area, including people who have held the job for years. A listed range is what an employer says a new hire might receive. For software developers, the median listed pay in a metro area was above the official median wage in 17 of the 19 metro areas where we could compare, led by Pittsburgh at 76.3% above. That gap says as much about who posts pay (larger, better-paying employers) as about what developers earn.

As of the October 2026 snapshot of 335,906 open postings from 7,678 employers. Median of the midpoints of listed ranges. See methodology.

A worked example (fictional)

A posting for a senior analyst lists "$130,000 to $170,000". The midpoint is $150,000. If the role is posted for two levels, the same text may carry two ranges, one for each. If you have three years fewer experience than the posting asks for, expect the lower part of the range; if you meet every requirement and the employer is hiring in a high-cost city, the middle or upper part is a reasonable starting point to ask about. This example is made up to show the reading, not a benchmark.

Checklist for any posting

• What is included? Base salary, bonus, commission, equity, sign-on. Write down which.
• Which level? Titles like "senior" differ between employers. Match the responsibilities, not the title.
• Which place? Ranges often change with location. Check the posting's location lines and the paycheck calculator for what a salary buys elsewhere.
• How old is it? A posting that has been open for months may not reflect a current budget. Our data shows the median posting is open 29 days, and 23.5% are open more than 60 days.
• No range? Ask: "Can you share the pay range for this role?" early, before you spend time on interviews.

Where to look next

• Industries: median listed pay for four industries
• Median posted pay by metro area
• Metro areas where employers say what the job pays
• Find jobs that fit your resume (free during beta)

Source: Second Summit, October 2026, from the open postings on employers' own career pages. Pay is the listed salary range, counted at its midpoint. Methodology

Browse open jobs by role and city, with the pay employers list and who is hiring.