Head of Growth Salary Benchmarks

Head of Growth is typically more data-driven and cross-functional, sitting between marketing, product, and engineering. VP of Marketing owns the full marketing function including brand, content, and communications. Head of Marketing and Head of Growth are sometimes peer roles reporting to the same executive, with Growth focused specifically on measurable acquisition, activation, and retention loops.

Common progressions include VP of Marketing (broader marketing ownership), Chief Marketing Officer (company-wide marketing and brand strategy), or VP of Product at PLG companies. Some Heads of Growth transition into general management or founding roles where their cross-functional experience is an asset.

Yes. Our data shows a $101,250–$197,869 typical range across 70 salaries. Seed to Series B companies often pay premium equity packages, while Series C+ companies offer higher base salaries as growth teams become more established.

Heads of Growth with engineering backgrounds (growth engineering) tend to earn 10–20% more than those from pure marketing backgrounds, especially at PLG and developer-tools companies. Technical growth leaders can directly build experimentation infrastructure, which reduces dependency on engineering teams and accelerates iteration speed.

On a median base salary of $140,000, a Head of Growth at a US SaaS company makes about $11,667 a month, $5,385 every two weeks, or $67.31 an hour over 2,080 working hours a year. The middle half of salaries (25th–75th percentile) works out to $8,438–$16,489 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 70 verified SaaS Head of Growth salaries, the 25th percentile is $101,250 and the median is $140,000. A Head of Growth 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 $197,869 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 $140,000, the fully loaded cost of a US Head of Growth is roughly $175,000–$196,000 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.