India’s startup ecosystem continues to prioritize technology leadership, with CTOs receiving the highest median salary among leadership roles, standing at Rs 1.77 crore per year.
The compensation surpasses that of the other C-suite executives, underscoring the increasing reliance of startups on technological scalability and infrastructure development. This is as per a report titled ‘Evolving Composition Trends’ released on March 6th by xto10x Technologies.
Product-led startups such as fintech and deep-tech companies, tech and product leaders command salaries in the 75th to 90th percentile of market benchmarks. For instance, the Vice President-Data Scientist role commands an annual salary of Rs 1.47 crore, while the Brand Marketing Head earns approximately Rs 0.81 crore per year.
Compensation trends further indicate that leadership pay increases by 20-30% at each stage of a startup’s development. Early-stage startups have lean teams with younger leaders, while later-stage companies attract seasoned ones with higher pay.
Although, this progression is evident in the pay of multiple entry-level employee salaries compared to others. On average, leaders in late-stage startups earn approximately 27 times the salary of an entry-level employee, while in early-stage startups, this multiple is lower, ranging between 15 and 20 times.
Salary structures also vary. In brand driven startups such as D2C and consumer brands, marketing leaders receive compensation in the upper market percentiles. Similarly, operations, sales, marketing, and growth CXOs typically earn a median multiple of 1.5x, whereas non-CXOs receive around 0.5x. Meanwhile, HR, finance, legal and compliance leaders receive a median multiple of 1x for CXOs and 0.5x for non-CXOs.
The highest multipliers are observed in product and technology roles, where CTOs and equivalent leaders command a 4.5x multiple, while non-CXOs in these roles earn 1.5x.
Meanwhile, equity compensation is another key factor influencing leadership remuneration. Startups with aggressive equity positioning often pay upto 20% over median multipliers. For instance, a CXO multiplier of 1.2x could rise to 1.44x based on a startup’s equity philosophy.
Additionally, critical individuals receive higher equity than standard multipliers suggest, with directors in high-equity startups earning comparable compensation to HR heads in companies with median equity positioning.
