Salary Range Builder
Minimum, midpoint and maximum for every grade, with the structural problems named: gaps, overlaps and a ladder that goes backwards.
Reads .xlsx and .csv inside your browser. Pay data never leaves your computer.
The grades
The structure
| Grade | Minimum | Midpoint | Maximum | Spread | Step up | Overlap | People |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 1 | 33,300 | 40,000 | 46,700 | 40% | — | — | — |
| Grade 2 | 40,800 | 50,000 | 59,200 | 45% | +25% | 44% | — |
| Grade 3 | 50,000 | 62,500 | 75,000 | 50% | +25% | 50% | — |
Drawn to scale
How this was measured
- Range spread is the distance from bottom to top as a share of the bottom, so a 50% spread means the maximum is one and a half times the minimum. From a midpoint M and spread S, the minimum is 2M over (2 + S) and the maximum is that times (1 + S).
- The midpoint shown is halfway between the minimum and maximum after rounding, not the number that was asked for. Those differ once the ends are rounded, and the first is what anything downstream will use.
- Overlap is how far the grade below reaches into this one, as a share of that lower grade's own range. Progression is how far this midpoint sits above the one below.
Building ranges from current pay makes current pay the policy
Deriving a structure from what you already pay is the most useful thing here and the most dangerous. If a grade is underpaid today, the median of that grade is a depressed number, and a range built around it turns the underpayment into the official structure. Everyone paid correctly then reads as high in band, which is precisely backwards, and the gap becomes something the organization defends rather than something it noticed.
The tool will do it, because the alternative is that nobody has any structure at all. It says this in red every time, and points at the Pay Equity Gap Analyzer first.
The arithmetic, stated
Range spread is the distance from bottom to top as a share of the bottom, so a 50% spread means the maximum is one and a half times the minimum. Given a midpoint M and a spread S, the minimum is 2M divided by (2 + S) and the maximum is that times (1 + S). A 60,000 midpoint at 50% gives 48,000 and 72,000, which is the band the Compa-Ratio Calculator is built and tested on, so the two agree by construction.
Rounding moves the middle
Round the ends to the nearest thousand and the midpoint is no longer the number you asked for. The midpoint shown here is the one the range actually has, halfway between the rounded ends, because that is what a compa-ratio will divide by. The figure you typed is kept beside it so the drift is visible.
The diagnostics matter more than the numbers
Ranges that never meet mean every promotion has to clear a gap, and somebody at the top of their grade has exactly one way to earn more.
Ranges that almost entirely overlap mean the grades are not separating anything, and the structure is doing less work than the number of grades suggests.
A midpoint below the grade beneath it is an error nobody has noticed yet, and everything built on it will be wrong in the same direction.
The same spread at every grade is worth a second look. Structures usually widen towards the top, because the difference between a competent and an exceptional senior person is worth more money than the same difference lower down.