Equitybee lands free benchmarking tool as startup employees finally get equity data companies have had for years

TL;DR

Equitybee has launched a free equity benchmarking tool built on 9,000+ verified joining grants from 2,500+ US startups. Employees can compare grants by department, seniority, and company stage. The tool deliberately does not predict exit values or offer financial advice. With IPOs returning and AI hiring pushing equity higher, the information asymmetry between employers and employees on compensation is finally narrowing.

Equitybee has launched Equitybee Benchmark, a free tool that lets US startup employees compare equity grants across roles, seniority levels, departments, and company stages. The company argues that while salary benchmarking has been everywhere for years, equity data has stayed locked inside HR teams and employers.

You would never accept a salary without comparing it to the market. There are entire websites built for exactly that, Levels.fyi, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn salary data. Type in your role and city, and within minutes you know whether an offer is competitive. Now try doing the same thing with your equity grant. Your offer includes 20,000 options. Is that a lot? Compared to what? For decades, that question has had no good answer for the person receiving the grant, even though equity is often the most important part of a startup offer.

Into that gap steps Equitybee, which just launched Equitybee Benchmark, a free tool that lets US startup employees compare equity grants across roles, seniority levels, departments, and company stages.

The Gap

Companies and HR teams have had equity benchmarking tools for years. They know exactly what the market pays because they buy the data. The employee sitting across the table, evaluating one of the most important parts of their compensation, has generally had almost nothing. The information asymmetry ran entirely in one direction. Employers had the numbers, and employees had a gut feeling.

I’ve interviewed hundreds of founders and executives over the years, and this gap comes up constantly. Tom Sosnoff, who sold two companies for over a billion dollars each, noted in a recent interview that every S&P 500 CEO knows what every other CEO makes because it is public, and that is exactly why executive pay keeps climbing while everyone else negotiates blind. His point was about salaries, but it applies doubly to equity. Context is valuable. Having the number in your back pocket changes how you sound in the conversation.

What Equitybee Built

The dataset is what makes this perhaps even more interesting. The Benchmark draws on over 9,000 verified joining option grants submitted through Equitybee, spanning more than 2,500 US startup companies from Seed through Pre-IPO. These are not self-reported numbers typed into a survey. They are verified grants.

The tool solves a problem many people don’t have the data access to figure. Even if you are a seasonal startup operator and you understand strike prices, can calculate exit scenarios, and understand how equity works, it is difficult to assess if the equity you’ve offered is competitive and suits the role you are about to take.

The Equitybee Benchmark closes this gap, allowing you to explore how grants stack up by department, by seniority, and by company stage. Say you are joining a Series B company as a senior engineer; you can see the median, 25th, and 75th percentiles of similar employees and get better context to work with.

What It Deliberately Does Not Do

The product does not tell you what your equity is truly worth. It does not predict whether your company will exit or what your options may eventually become. It cannot, because nobody can. What it does is give you context, the same context companies have had for years, so you can walk into an offer conversation or a compensation conversation with real market data instead of a shrug.

That matters in four specific moments: when you are evaluating a new job offer, preparing for a compensation conversation, considering a move to another company, or simply trying to understand the equity you already hold.

Why Now

The timing is worth noting. With IPOs returning and the AI hiring war pushing startup compensation to new levels, equity is a bigger piece of total compensation than it has been in years. And the people receiving it deserve the same data access as the people granting it.

The broader story here is about a lag. For many years, the information asymmetry in startup compensation ran entirely in one direction. Companies had the data. Employees had a gut feeling. Tools like this are part of a wider shift, where data once locked inside institutions gets opened up to the individuals it affects most.

If you work at a startup, are considering joining one, or are staring at an offer letter right now trying to decode how competitive the offer you got is, you can explore Equitybee Benchmark for free.

You would never accept a salary without comparing it. Your equity deserves the same.

*Equitybee Benchmark provides market context based exclusively on Equitybee platform data. It is not financial, tax, legal, or compensation advice. The data is presented as is and has not been independently verified; it may not reflect the broader startup market. Equitybee executes private financing contracts (PFCs). PFCs could limit your profits. PFCs are brokered by Equitybee Securities LLC, member FINRA.

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