Open

We’ve been leading the Open Startups movement since 2013. Here you’ll find information about Buffer that few other companies would publish. We share openly because we believe in the power of transparency to build trust, hold us accountable to a high standard, and push our industry forward.

Company Metrics

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Salary Calculator

I'm a and I live in a high cost of living city (e.g. New York, London)

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Transparent Salaries

Joel

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4-Day Work Week

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Time off Taken

Books

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

Mongolia - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture

Life Admin: How I Learned to Do Less, Do Better, and Live More

Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More

The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists

Map

Meet our global team

Open Blog

Read blog posts where we document what we learn as we build Buffer differently.

Open

The Story Behind Buffer’s AI: An Interview with Diego Sanchez

We go behind the scenes on Buffer’s AI developments in this interview with Senior Product Manager Diego Sanchez.

Open

We Pay Out Unused Sabbaticals When Someone Leaves Buffer, Here’s Why

In 2019, we introduced sabbaticals at Buffer. The concept is to reward long-tenured teammates and invite them to take a well-earned break from work. Most professionals have to leave their jobs to take a break longer than a typical one- or two-week vacation. Sabbaticals allow teammates to take that break and return to Buffer, refreshed and recharged. This is one of our most cherished benefits for this reason. When a teammate reaches five years with us, they are eligible to take this fully-paid s

Open

Trust, Transparency, and Curiosity: Batsirai Chada on Buffer's Unique Culture

Batsirai Chada is a Growth Product Manager at Buffer, where he’s worked for about nine months. We spoke to him when he first joined to find out about his journey to Buffer, how he works, and what he does outside of work.

Open

How We Handle Severance In Cases Of Mutual Separation

We’ve always aimed to chart our own course at Buffer for how we approach traditional business practices, and severance is no different. Recently, we’ve adjusted our severance policy to apply in more situations. We’ve introduced the concept of “mutual separations” for the cases when a teammate and their manager both feel that the teammate’s chapter at Buffer has come to an end. We strive to be generous to these teammates who have spent a portion of their careers and lives with us at Buffer. In t

A timeline of transparency at Buffer

Here's an overview of the transparency timeline at Buffer, as you saw above, much of the company is transparent. Here's more of the story of when that happened and how it came about.

2010

The first version of Buffer, the product, was launched November 30th, 2010. The launch appeared on Hacker News as a part of the November Startup Sprint.

2011

In early 2011, our co-founder CEO, Joel Gascoigne, started publicly sharing several milestones around Buffer users. The first example was reaching 500 signups.

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At the end of 2011, we raised $450,000 and shared the names of the 19 investors and how we met them.

2013

In February 2013, Joel emailed the team to share the first iteration of our salary formula along with sharing the whole team's salaries transparently internally.

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In March 2013, our equity formula was made transparent internally as well.

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In May, we published the exact fundraising deck used in the 2012 seed round

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In September, we shared our first investor's update publicly.

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In October Buffer was hacked, and we shared our live blog with updates on the situation publicly.

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In December, we were ready to share salaries externally, and we published the spreadsheet with our salaries.

2014

Our equity formula, which was made internally transparent in 2013, was made externally transparent in April of 2014.

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In the same month, we added a public revenue dashboard with real-time revenue numbers.

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In October, we raised a transparent Series A round where we shared our valuation term sheet.

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In December, we shared a pricing breakdown of exactly where your money goes if you were paying $10 for Buffer.

2015

We shared our first diversity dashboard in June, along with our full diversity stats.

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In November, we made an update to iterate on our salary formula.

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We released the first version of our salary calculator, which anyone could use to see what they would get paid if they worked at Buffer.

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In December, we acquired Respondly and shared as much of the process transparently as we were able to.

2016

In April, we launched a public Trello board with our product roadmap that is still operational and up to date.

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In June, we had a cash-flow crisis resulting in several financial changes at Buffer, including a round of lay offs.

2017

In February, our COO and CTO decided to leave Buffer. We shared more about this change and the vision for the future of Buffer.

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In April, we shared Buffer's first Equal Pay report, a report that detailed what men and women earned at Buffer.

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In December, we had our first profit share of $300,000 and charitable donation of $50,000.

2018

In August, we decided to spend $3.3 Million buying out our VC investors as it was clear that Buffer had become less of a fit for VC funding.

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In the same month, we shared our company budget and operating expenses transparently.

2019

In June, after two years of successful profit sharing, we shared our formula for profit sharing and charitable contributions.

2020

In April, we shared every team communication we had around COVID-19.

2021

We moved our transparent salaries from a spreadsheet to a table more prominently displayed on our website and added in a clear depiction of our salary formula and compensation philosophy.

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Company Metrics

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Books

Map

Open Blog

The Story Behind Buffer’s AI: An Interview with Diego Sanchez

We Pay Out Unused Sabbaticals When Someone Leaves Buffer, Here’s Why

Trust, Transparency, and Curiosity: Batsirai Chada on Buffer's Unique Culture

How We Handle Severance In Cases Of Mutual Separation

A timeline of transparency at Buffer

Tools

Channels

Open

Company Metrics

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Transparent Salaries

4-Day Work Week

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62%

84%

Time off Taken

Books

Map

Open Blog

The Story Behind Buffer’s AI: An Interview with Diego Sanchez

We Pay Out Unused Sabbaticals When Someone Leaves Buffer, Here’s Why

Trust, Transparency, and Curiosity: Batsirai Chada on Buffer's Unique Culture

How We Handle Severance In Cases Of Mutual Separation

A timeline of transparency at Buffer

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