Why Buffer Has Transparent Salaries and How The Open Salary Formula Works

Jun 3, 2014 1 min readOpen
Photo of Courtney Seiter
Courtney Seiter

Former Director of People @ Buffer

We’ve updated our transparent salary formula since this post originally was published. Learn more about the latest formula and see all the team’s current salaries here.


Joel and Leo discuss one of the best-known elements of Buffer’s culture—transparent salaries—in this Founder Chat.

Here are a few more resources for additional information on Buffer’s transparent salaries:

• Take a look at our open salaries spreadsheet to see the formula in action.

• For more information about Buffer’s open salaries, read our full post here.

• Read about Buffer’s transparent equity here.

• And here’s a look at what happened in our recruitment efforts after we announced transparent salaries.

See more Founder Chat videos on our YouTube playlist—be sure to subscribe if you like what you see!

Do you have a question for Joel and Leo, or an idea for a topic you’d like to see them address in a future chat? Share it with us in the comments!

Try Buffer for free

180,000+ creators, small businesses, and marketers use Buffer to grow their audiences every month.

Related Articles

Sabreen Haziq takes a selfie in front of the Buffer team in Türkiye.
OpenJun 6, 2025
I Joined Buffer 3 Days Before The Retreat: Here Are My Retreat Reflections

What it was like to join a fully remote team like Buffer, and how going on the company retreat so early on helped shape my journey in ways I hadn’t imagined.

OpenApr 18, 2025
We Updated Our Dependent Stipend For The First Time In 8 Years, Here’s What Changed

If you’ve followed Buffer for a while, then you know we have a few uncommon approaches to teammate benefits and compensation. The example I’ll dig into today is our “Dependent Grant,” which we launched in 2016.  Our Dependent Grant is separate benefit, outside of salary, that we grant teammates who are taking care of and supporting family members. It’s an extra $3,000 USD per year per child, up to four dependents total. This has been one of our most unusual (and at times controversial) benefits

OpenApr 4, 2025
We Paid A Candidate To Spend A Day Working With Us, Here’s How It Went

It can feel incredibly challenging to hire, and hire well. For one thing, hiring is usually a significant time investment for our small team — we once had 1,500 applications in just over a week for a content role (!!) — but beyond that, we are so intentional about the ways that we collaborate. Buffer is a fully remote, global, and culturally diverse company operating with a four-day work week. Finding someone who will thrive in our work environment, and is also highly skilled in the areas we’r

140,000+ people like you use Buffer to build their brand on social media every month