While working on recruiting the next marketing head at Xobni (either VP or director level), I stumbled across a great blog post on the typical compensation packages for VPs of Marketing at Tech Startups: http://www.mikevolpe.com/bid/3858/. I haven’t downloaded the actual report which may provide more data (you can see it here https://www.compstudy.com/).
| Percentile | Cash Compensation | Stock Option % |
| 80% | $225,000 | 1.65% |
| 60% | $200,000 | 1.25% |
| 40% | $175,000 | 1.00% |
| 20% | $160,000 | 0.75% |
Unfortunately Mike’s post doesn’t give many details on compensation by startup stage (I assume these probably weren’t available in the report either). In my opinion pre-series A has more risk and should give the marketing VP more equity (all other qualifications being equal). Also 1% of a pre-series A company is worth much less than 1% of the same company after the series C round (because of dilution).
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