Average CMO Salary 2026: By Company Size, Startup Pay and Equity

The average CMO salary in the US is about $193,000 to $374,000 in base pay, depending on whose database you trust: PayScale reports $192,996, Built In $225,908 and Salary.com $374,298 (all 2026). Company size explains most of that gap. At a startup the typical CMO base is closer to $162,000, while the 11 public-company CMOs named in 2026 proxy statements below earned a median salary of $486,539 and a median of $1.84 million in total compensation.

Below: every major salary source side by side, 11 real CMO pay packages from SEC filings sorted by company size, startup salary and equity norms, how a package splits between base, bonus and equity, a separate look at banks, and a worked example of what a CMO really costs once benefits and equity are added.

Average CMO salary: what each data source says

No two sources measure the same thing. Some average self-reported base pay, some benchmark a job description, and the federal government does not track “CMO” as its own job at all. Read the number together with what sits behind it.

The two federal rows bracket the role. O*NET’s list of job titles for marketing managers includes “Marketing Director” but not CMO, and its list for chief executives includes CFO, COO, CTO and EVP titles. A CMO who runs one function at a small company looks like the top decile of the first group. A CMO who sits on the executive committee of a large company is paid like the second. That is why a single “average CMO salary” misleads: you are averaging two different jobs.

Real CMO pay at 11 public companies (2026 proxy statements)

The most reliable CMO pay data is the Summary Compensation Table in a public company’s proxy statement (form DEF 14A), filed with the SEC whenever the CMO is one of the company’s named executive officers. I pulled every 2026 proxy where a full-year CMO appears in that table and sorted them by company size. Revenue is from each company’s latest 10-K financial data on SEC EDGAR.

How to read it:

• Totals include “all other compensation” (401(k) match, insurance, perks), and for Coca-Cola and Group 1 a change in pension value, so the columns do not always add to the total.
• Stock awards are grant-date accounting values, not cash. Virtuix granted its CMO 115,000 RSUs valued at $190,900 on the grant date. The same unvested units were worth $778,550 in the proxy’s outstanding-awards table after the company listed. Equity can also go the other way.
• Revenue predicts pay only loosely. Group 1 Automotive is 17 times the size of Planet Fitness by revenue but paid its CMO about a third less in total. Axogen, a $225 million medical technology company, paid more than either because 69% of the package was stock.
• Salary sits in a narrow band. Ten of the eleven salaries fall between $285,166 and $841,667. Almost all of the spread in total pay comes from bonus and equity.

For what the role covers and when a company needs one, see our chief marketing officer role and impact guide, which uses the same Dutch Bros, Planet Fitness and Brinker filings.

Average CMO salary by company size

No public survey publishes CMO pay by revenue band with its method attached. The table below assembles the bands from the sources above, with the source named on every row, so you can see what each number rests on.

Two limits. Public-company CMOs are only disclosed when they rank among the top five or so earners, so the proxy rows skew toward companies where marketing is a top-tier job. And private mid-market companies, which employ most CMOs, do not file proxies at all. For them, Built In’s $296,195 and the BLS 90th percentile for marketing managers ($293,610) are the closest public anchors.

Startup CMO salary: what early-stage companies pay

A startup CMO typically earns a base salary in the mid-$100,000s, with equity carrying the upside. Wellfound, which tracks startup job listings, puts the average expected CMO salary at US startups at $162,042, with below-average offers around $102,042 and top-of-market offers around $277,667.

A second check is what startups pay their other executives. Kruze Consulting, an accounting firm that reports from the payroll records of its venture-backed clients, published these 2026 base salary averages (Kruze does not report CMOs):

A non-founder CMO paid well above the CEO at the same stage is unusual, so these rows work as a practical ceiling: about $150,000 at seed and $200,000 to $250,000 by Series B. The one startup-sized CMO in the proxy table fits the pattern. Virtuix, with $4.3 million in revenue, pays its CMO a $220,000 base with no cash bonus (her earlier sales-based incentive was dropped when her salary went up) and puts the rest of the package in RSUs and options.

Stage also decides whether the job exists. Carta’s State of Startup Compensation, H2 2025 reports a median seed-stage team of four people and an average Series B headcount of 45 in 2025. My view: a four-person company that posts a “CMO” role usually needs a senior marketer who also executes, and should price the role off the Wellfound and Kruze numbers, not off Salary.com.

How much equity a startup CMO gets

Index Ventures’ Rewarding Talent guide says most Series A and B startups have no more than three true non-founding C-level executives, and that a grant of 1% of fully diluted equity would be typical for each of them, including the CMO. Its ranges:

The same guide notes a shift toward performance-vested equity for sales and marketing executives, whose work moves the top line. The proxies show it in practice: Intapp’s CMO received PSUs that vest on annual recurring revenue and profitability targets through June 2028, and Axogen’s PSUs pay out on revenue growth. If you are hiring a startup CMO, a mix of time-vested and revenue-vested equity is a defensible structure.

The math for a candidate: 1% of a company that sells for $100 million is $1 million before dilution from later rounds, taxes and the exercise price, spread over a four-year vest. That is $250,000 a year on paper at a nine-figure exit and close to zero if the company fails. Treat it that way when you compare a startup offer with a cash-heavy one.

CMO base vs bonus vs equity: how a package splits

Bonus targets rise with company size. Every target below is stated in the company’s proxy as a percentage of base salary.

Brinker discloses its CMO target in dollars: $374,957 on a $600,000 year-end base, with $524,452 paid. Bonus metrics are almost always company results, not marketing metrics: Planet Fitness counts adjusted EBITDA among its goals, Group 1 uses adjusted net income, Kohl’s uses merchandise sales and operating margin, and Intapp ties half of the target to net new annual contract value.

The overall mix moves the same way. Salary was 54% of total pay at Virtuix, 47% at Primis and 46% at J&J Snack Foods, against 26% at Planet Fitness, 24% at Dutch Bros, 11% at Coca-Cola and 5% at Microsoft. Across these 11 filings, salary ran from 17% (Axogen) to 54% (Virtuix) of the package at companies under $2 billion in revenue, and from 5% (Microsoft) to 33% (Group 1) above $15 billion. The bigger the company, the more of the pay is at risk.

Salary benchmarks for CMOs at banks

Bank CMOs rarely make a proxy’s named-executive list, so public data points are scarce. Primis Financial, a bank holding company with $4.0 billion in assets, is one that does. Its EVP and CMO, Ann-Stanton C. Gore, received a 4.0% raise to $286,083, had a 30% target bonus and earned $610,877 in total for 2025, including a $202,800 stock award. That is the lowest bonus target of any company in the tables above. For marketing managers below the CMO, BLS puts the May 2025 median in finance and insurance at $172,350, slightly above the all-industry median of $166,790. Columbia Banking System, a much larger bank with $66.8 billion in assets, lists an EVP and CMO among its executive officers in its 2026 proxy but not among the named executives whose pay it discloses, which tells you where the role usually ranks on a bank’s pay ladder.

What a CMO costs the company: a worked example

Salary is not the cost. Add employer benefits and payroll taxes, the bonus, and equity. For the benefits load I use the same method as our marketing director cost breakdown. In the BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026, private-industry management, business and financial jobs cost $88.63 an hour in total: $59.85 in wages, $8.47 in paid leave and $20.31 in other benefits. A salary already covers paid leave, so the load on top of salary is $20.31 / ($59.85 + $8.47) = 29.7%, a multiplier of 1.297.

Two adjustments make this more exact for your own budget:

• Strip the bonus overlap. ECEC’s 29.7% includes supplemental pay (bonuses and similar), $4.89 of the $20.31. Since the table lists the bonus separately, the strict benefits-only load is $15.42 / $68.32 = 22.6%. On the Planet Fitness salary that lowers benefits from $144,637 to $109,812.
• Payroll tax caps. Social Security tax stops at an annual wage cap, so the legally required share falls as salary rises. The 1.297 multiplier slightly overstates the load for anyone paid well above the cap.

The table also leaves out search fees, relocation, a sign-on bonus and the months a new CMO needs to ramp. Intapp’s proxy shows how large a year-one grant can get: its new CMO, hired in August 2025 at a $472,000 annualized salary, received $8,954,388 in stock awards and $1,013,750 in other compensation in his first fiscal year. If the year-one cash line is out of reach, compare it with what a fractional CMO costs in 2026 before you write the offer.

How to set a CMO salary offer: a 6-step worksheet

1. Pick the job, not the title. If the role runs one function with a small team, price it off the BLS marketing manager 75th to 90th percentile band (top 10% above $293,610). If it sits on the executive team and owns revenue targets, price it off the CMO data above. Pass: you can name which of the two jobs you are hiring.
2. Set base from your size band. Startup: $150,000 to $250,000 depending on stage (Wellfound, Kruze). Private mid-market: about $290,000 to $300,000 (Built In 501 to 1,000 employees, BLS 90th percentile). Public, $1 billion to $6 billion in revenue: about $360,000 to $545,000 (proxies). Pass: base sits inside the band, or you can say why it does not.
3. Set the bonus target. 30% at a regional bank, 60% to 75% at a $200 million to $2 billion company, 83% to 225% above $15 billion. Pass: the bonus pays on company results you already track, not on metrics marketing grades itself.
4. Size the equity. Startups: 0.8% to 1.5% of fully diluted equity for a true C-level hire (Index Ventures). Public companies under $6 billion in revenue: grants in these proxies ran from $190,900 (Virtuix) to $1.58 million (Axogen). Pass: at least part vests on revenue or profit goals.
5. Load it. Multiply base by 1.297 for benefits, add the target bonus, then list equity separately. Pass: finance signs off on the year-one cash number, not just the salary.
6. Test the alternative. Compare the year-one cash cost with a part-time or fractional option before posting the role. Pass: you can explain why full-time leadership is worth the difference.

If you want a second opinion on whether the full-time number makes sense for your stage, you can book a consultation. For pay data on the rest of the marketing team, see our marketing employment and salary statistics.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average CMO salary?

The average US CMO base salary is about $193,000 to $374,000, depending on the source: PayScale reports $192,996, Built In $225,908 and Salary.com $374,298 (2026). At public companies pay is higher: the 11 CMOs named in 2026 proxy statements reviewed here earned a median salary of $486,539 and median total compensation of $1.84 million, most of it bonus and stock.

What is the average CMO salary by company size?

Startup CMOs average about $162,000 (Wellfound). Built In reports $296,195 at companies with 501 to 1,000 employees. In 2026 proxies, CMOs at $1 billion to $6 billion revenue companies earned $359,717 to $545,366 in salary and $782,464 to $2.16 million in total, while Coca-Cola's CMO earned $6.69 million and Microsoft's $15.7 million.

How much does a startup CMO make?

A startup CMO typically earns a base salary of about $150,000 at seed to $200,000 to $250,000 by Series B. Wellfound puts the average at US startups at $162,042, and Kruze Consulting's 2026 payroll data shows startup CEOs averaging $153,000 at seed and $216,000 at Series B, a practical ceiling for a non-founder CMO. Equity carries most of the upside.

How much equity does a startup CMO get?

Index Ventures' Rewarding Talent guide says a grant of about 1% of fully diluted equity is typical for each true C-level hire at Series A and B startups, including the CMO, with a range of 0.8% to 1.5%. VP of Marketing grants run 0.3% to 0.8%. Grants increasingly vest partly on revenue targets for marketing and sales leaders.

What are salary benchmarks for CMOs at banks?

Few bank CMOs appear in proxy pay tables. Primis Financial, with $4.0 billion in assets, paid its EVP and CMO a $286,083 base after a 4% raise, with a 30% target bonus and $610,877 in total 2025 pay. BLS puts the median for marketing managers in finance and insurance at $172,350 (May 2025).

How much does a CMO cost a company in total?

Multiply base salary by 1.297 for benefits and payroll taxes (BLS employer cost data, June 2026), add the bonus, then equity. A $293,610 base with a 30% bonus costs about $468,977 in year-one cash. Planet Fitness's CMO package works out to about $1.07 million in cash and $1.94 million including stock awards.

How much bonus does a CMO get?

CMO target bonuses in 2026 proxies range from 30% of base at Primis Financial to 60% at Axogen and Dutch Bros, 75% at Planet Fitness, 110% at Kohl's, 125% at Coca-Cola and 225% at Microsoft. Actual payouts swing with company results: Kohl's paid 185.4% of target for fiscal 2025 and Dutch Bros paid 200%.