Compa-Ratio Calculator

The compa-ratio measures a salary against the midpoint of its band, not against the bottom. One hundred percent means paid at the midpoint — which is usually the rate for someone fully competent in the role, not a ceiling and not a target for everyone.

This page places a salary inside its pay band and reports the result as a percentage of the band midpoint. The midpoint is the whole point of the measure: comparing against the bottom of a band tells you only that someone clears the minimum, while comparing against the middle says how far along the band they actually sit. The calculation is one division. On the values the page starts with, a band running from 60,000 to 90,000 has its midpoint at 75,000, and a salary of 72,000 divided by that midpoint gives 96 percent — a little under the middle, nowhere near the top. The edges of that same band come out at 80 and 120 percent, which is worth holding on to: under range penetration, which counts up from the bottom, those two salaries would read 0 and 100 percent instead. What the percentage does not contain is any adjustment for hours. Pay bands are normally quoted full-time, so a part-time salary belongs converted to its full-time equivalent before it goes in; the calculator carries no factor of its own. The assumption that matters most is the midpoint. This page takes it as the middle between the minimum and the maximum entered, but some employers set the midpoint first and derive the edges from it. If yours does, enter the edges belonging to that midpoint — otherwise the percentage is measured against the wrong reference.