What should a CTO earn at our stage?

Questions CTOs ask

What is the typical CTO salary at a startup?

It varies enormously by stage, funding, geography and whether the CTO is a founder. The pattern most people see is that base salary rises with each funding round while equity percentage falls: a seed-stage CTO trades cash for a materially larger stake than a Series B hire doing the same job. This calculator shows an indicative range for each combination so you have a starting point, but the ranges are a hand-authored reference table rather than survey data — check a current compensation survey or a specialist recruiter before you make or accept an offer.

How much equity should a CTO receive?

The two questions that matter are when the CTO joined and what they are accountable for. A co-founder who was there before funding is in a different conversation from a first CTO hire after a Series A, and both differ from a CTO joining an established engineering org. Whatever the percentage, evaluate it on expected value after dilution and read the terms as carefully as the number — strike price, vesting schedule, cliff, acceleration on change of control, and the post-termination exercise window routinely matter more than a percentage point.