Data Scientist Salary Benchmarks

Data Scientists typically earn 20–40% more than Data Analysts, reflecting the deeper statistical modeling, machine learning, and experimentation skills required. Data Analysts focus on reporting and business intelligence, while Data Scientists build predictive models and design experiments.

Common progressions include Senior Data Scientist, Staff Data Scientist, ML Engineering Manager, or Senior Software Engineer specializing in ML infrastructure. Some Data Scientists also move into research-focused roles or technical leadership.

Yes, substantially. Our data shows a $58,949–$127,794 typical range across 122 salaries. AI-first startups and late-stage companies pay the highest premiums for proven ML talent, while earlier-stage companies compensate with larger equity stakes and broader problem ownership.

Significantly. Specialists in high-demand areas like LLMs, computer vision, recommendation systems, and fraud detection command 15–30% premiums over generalist Data Scientists. Production ML experience — deploying, monitoring, and iterating on models at scale — is increasingly valued over pure research backgrounds.

On a median base salary of $97,500, a Data Scientist at a US SaaS company makes about $8,125 a month, $3,750 every two weeks, or $46.88 an hour over 2,080 working hours a year. The middle half of salaries (25th–75th percentile) works out to $4,912–$10,649 a month. These are base-pay equivalents before tax, and they leave out bonus, commission, and equity.

Expect the lower half of this benchmark. Across 122 verified SaaS Data Scientist salaries, the 25th percentile is $58,949 and the median is $97,500. A Data Scientist at a seed or Series A startup, or at a bootstrapped company under roughly $10M ARR, will often land between those two figures. Base pay typically moves toward and past the $127,794 75th percentile as the company adds headcount and ARR. Those stage bands are a rule of thumb applied to this benchmark, not a breakdown by company size, which the dataset does not report.

Budget for more than base salary. On a median base of $97,500, the fully loaded cost of a US Data Scientist is roughly $121,875–$136,500 per year once employer payroll taxes (~7.65% FICA plus federal and state unemployment), health and retirement benefits, software seats, and equipment are added. That 1.25–1.4x multiplier is a planning rule of thumb applied to the benchmark on this page, not a surveyed cost figure. Commission, bonuses, and equity sit on top where the role carries them. Also budget one-off hiring costs: agency recruiting fees commonly run 15–25% of first-year base, and a new hire takes weeks to months to reach full productivity.