Have a Question?
Subscribe
Talent Insights Blog
January 31, 2024

Salary Data Fun: Account Executive Edition

Authors:

Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.

Yay numbers

No matter the field, market awareness matters. If you’re in trading, real estate, whatever widget your company sells, or for today’s purposes – hiring.

Key thing to note:

👉Data without context is meaningless.

If you don’t understand the subject matter and limitations of the data sets, you’ll draw the wrong conclusions. And make bad decisions.

Case in point: salary data. We pull salary data from multiple sources and provide it to our clients, free of charge. It’s important in making a hiring plan. But it’s equally important to know where it can be off base. (Or where is “hallucinates” as the ChatGPT nerds call it.)

If I had a dollar for every time someone went to a free online salary calculator and said “the internet says I’m worth $XX a year” and it was nowhere near accurate, I’d wouldn’t still be posting on LinkedIn like a dork.

Real data on Account Executive (4-7 year) and Sr. Account Executive (7+ year) salaries, 2023 vs 2024, US market, technology/software sector.

👉AEs: Jan 1 2023 vs Jan 1 2024

•25th-75th percentile base range: $85.5k-$114.7k vs $89.3-122.4k

•50th percentile base midpoint: $98.8k vs $104.7k

•25th-75th percentile total comp range: $97.9k-139.9k vs 101k-148k

•50th percentile total comp midpoint: $116.2k vs 121.4k

👉Sr. AEs: Jan 1 2023 vs Jan 1 2024

•25th-75th percentile base range: $106.3k-$141.1k vs $111.6-150.8k

•50th percentile base midpoint: $123.1k vs $130.3k

•25th-75th percentile total comp range: $124.6k-176.6k vs 129.6k-188kk

•50th percentile total comp midpoint: $147.5k vs 155.2k

All true facts. Wage inflation in the 5-6% range, which tracks any Google-able source.

But…things were a little different this year, no? Some industries got crushed while others thrived. Not to mention in sales, the size of the companies you sell to directly impacts your comp.

👉Salary ranges our GTM recruiting team is seeing today, from companies hiring AE’s and senior AE’s, based on the size of companies they sell to:

•SMB: $75-90k base; $120k+ OTE 

•Mid-market: $90-120k base; 50/50 split

•Low enterprise: $125-130k base; double OTE

•True enterprise: $150-170k base; double OTE

A very different story, depending on your company’s sales focus.

Data’s great. But if you aren’t familiar with gaps, you’ll probably draw the wrong conclusions.

Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.

More blogs from James Hornick

See more...
Coming Soon...
See all Talent Insights Blog entries....

Our Latest Featured Episode

Q2 Check-In: A Slower Start, Promising Momentum
No results found.

Q2 Check-In: A Slower Start, Promising Momentum

By Ryan Brown and Emily Goor | May 28, 2025 | The Hirewell Update

In this quarterly update, Emily and Ryan hosted Hirewell CEO, Matt Massuci, where they dove into company-wide and practice-specific hiring trends from the start of 2025. While January and February lagged behind expectations—down 10% year-over-year—March brought a 25% surge, signaling renewed momentum. Executive search and interim hiring are on the rise, even as Solutions work has slowed. Despite external factors like Liberation Day causing brief delays, the last six weeks were the strongest of the year, especially the past two. Practice leads weigh in with mixed performance: CF and GTM are seeing higher deal volumes but softer billing, Industrial is driving growth through high-level searches, and Tech, while down, appears to be stabilizing. Net-net: 2025 began slower than 2024, but all signs point to a strong rebound.

Watch/Listen

Episode 32

No results found.

Our Shows