Research
We read 8,204 AI job postings. Here is who tells you the pay.
Measured on 89 companies’ own job boards on 25 August 2026 — not on an aggregator, which is where every other figure on this question comes from and which is exactly the problem.
- of roles state a salary
- 57%
- roles read
- 8,204
- boards that never do
- 5
Why this number is different from the ones you have seen
Every published figure on pay transparency comes from a job aggregator, and an aggregator is the wrong instrument. Compensation is one of the first fields lost when a posting is scraped, re-syndicated and re-formatted, so a count taken there measures how well the aggregator preserved the field — not whether the employer published it.
These numbers come from the source. Each company’s applicant tracking system — Greenhouse, Lever or Ashby — is public by design, and it is the same feed that powers the careers page on their own website. A figure is either in the posting or it is not.
The reading is deliberately literal. A posting counts only if it states an actual range; “competitive salary”, equity language and a mention of a bonus scheme all count as no figure, which is the same rule that decides what may be listed on this board.
The companies that always tell you
Boards with at least 20 open roles, most open first. 53 of the 89 qualify — a percentage over four roles is noise, so the smaller boards count in the totals above but not in this table.
| Company | States pay | Open roles |
|---|---|---|
| Suno | 100% | 61 of 61 |
| Baseten | 99% | 74 of 75 |
| Discord | 96% | 49 of 51 |
| Astronomer | 96% | 22 of 23 |
| WorkOS | 93% | 26 of 28 |
| Fireworks | 92% | 59 of 64 |
| Render | 91% | 29 of 32 |
| Decagon | 88% | 120 of 137 |
| Temporal | 87% | 48 of 55 |
| Perplexity | 85% | 84 of 99 |
| Replit | 85% | 60 of 71 |
| Vapi | 85% | 28 of 33 |
| Anthropic | 84% | 455 of 539 |
| Modal | 84% | 26 of 31 |
| Crusoe | 82% | 300 of 368 |
The 5 that never do
Not one posting on these boards states a salary. The pattern is geographic rather than principled: US pay-transparency law in California, Colorado, New York and Washington requires a range on the posting, and a company hiring wholly outside those jurisdictions is under no such duty. It is why a European AI company with 246 open roles can publish nothing at all and be entirely within the rules.
| Company | States pay | Open roles |
|---|---|---|
| ElevenLabs | 0% | 0 of 246 |
| Cursor | 0% | 0 of 115 |
| Lovable | 0% | 0 of 61 |
| Supabase | 0% | 0 of 59 |
| Linear | 0% | 0 of 32 |
What this costs the person reading the posting
With 43% of roles quoting nothing, applying is partly guesswork: you find out what the work pays after the conversations, or you do not find out at all. That asymmetry is the entire argument for making a figure mandatory, and it is why No Varnish refuses a listing without one — including roles we would otherwise want, from companies whose products this board tracks.
The cost is real and worth naming. Several tools people search for here have no page on this board, because the company that makes them publishes no pay on any role. That gap is the rule working, not a gap in coverage.
The other half of the question is what the ones that do publish actually say. We read every range they quoted, and the typical one turns out to be wide enough that “disclosed” and “you know what it pays” are not the same statement.
Method
- What share of AI job postings show the salary?
- 57% of the 8,204 roles we read state a pay figure. That is measured on each company's own job board rather than on an aggregator, which matters because aggregators frequently drop the compensation field.
- Why do some AI companies never publish pay?
- 5 of the boards we read state a figure on none of their roles. The pattern is geographic rather than principled: US pay-transparency laws in states like California, Colorado and New York require a range on the posting, and companies hiring wholly outside those jurisdictions are under no such duty.
- How was this measured?
- Every role on each company's public applicant tracking system — Greenhouse, Lever or Ashby — was fetched and its text scanned for a stated salary range. No sampling and no estimation: a posting either quotes a figure or it does not. Boards with fewer than 20 open roles are counted in the totals but left out of the table, because a percentage over four roles is noise.
- Is the pay on No Varnish verified?
- Every listing on this board publishes the figure its employer published, and each live listing is re-read against its original posting once a day. If the posting is gone or the pay has changed, the listing comes down rather than quietly carrying on.
Scanned on 25 August 2026. The snapshot is regenerated by re-running the sourcing harvest, and this page moves only when it does — a research figure that changed silently between two readings would be worth less than no figure. Quote it freely; a link back lets a reader check how old it is.