The goal of compensation and benefits is to recruit the very best people onto your team, keep them happy for as long as possible, and unlock their full potential in the process.
Many organizations look at this as an opportunity to do the least amount necessary to keep people from leaving.
I believe every organization has a responsibility to take care of its people. That’s why we look at benefits as an opportunity to do the most we can responsibly afford to take great care of the humans on the ConvertKit team.
The less people have to worry about meeting their basic needs — and I consider basic needs to be much more than just food/water/shelter — the better their work will be.
We combine these benefits with strong organizational principles around acting like owners, taking responsibility, and holding one another accountable. In the process, our comp and benefits package allows us to create a beautiful mutually beneficial relationship between the organization and the individual team members who make it what it is.
Here is a list of our current compensation and benefits, as well as why we offer each one:
- 100% remote work – you can work when you want, where you want. You have a responsibility to attend the key meetings that make up our organizational operating system, but other than that your job is to get results. Wherever you work best is where you should work — whether from a train between European cities or from your desk in your guest bedroom.
- Standardized salaries – we offer equal pay for equal work. Every role in the company has a specific title and job description. Each role has between 5-6 levels, which correspond to specific, defined skills, experience, and responsibilities. Each level has a corresponding salary attached. We pull that data from a company called Radford (shout out to Basecamp for the recommendation). We currently pay at the 50th percentile for technology companies across the US under $50 million in revenue. No matter your gender, country of origin, culture, or age, you’re paid based on the role and level that matches your experience.
- Profit sharing – every person on the team participates in profit sharing. We’re a bootstrapped, 100% independent company, which means our funding is revenue. It also means we focus on staying profitable every month. To encourage the team to push for profitability and to share the benefit of being highly profitable, we share profit across the board. We take savings and taxes out of our total profit, and then divide the remaining profit up as follows: 52% to the team, 8% to leadership, 40% to owners. We then cut profit sharing checks once every six months at our team retreats.
- Equity options – every new member of the team is issued a standard allotment of shares the give them substantial long-term upside in the company. With a current annual growth rate of 35-40% and annual revenue of ~$18M and growing, these options are already worth good money. As we move towards our goal of $100M ARR by 2025, this will only grow with time.
- 401(k) match up to 4% of salary – people who invest early are able to retire earlier and more comfortably. We encourage investment through a healthy match and we have xx% of our team who participates. 87% of the team currently contributes to get the full match.
- Full health, vision, and dental coverage – we set a per-employee budget each year that allows for 100% coverage of health, vision, and dental coverage on a high quality, low deductible plan. If employees have budget left over, they can use it to cover other members of their family. They can also choose alternative plans that allow for coverage for more family members within the allotted budget.
- 3 weeks vacation in your first year, 4 weeks every year after that (we also pay you $1,000 to take a full week once a year) – well-rested employees are happier, more productive, and more creative. Vacation makes for more well-rested employees. In their first year at ConvertKit, teammates get three weeks off. Every year after that, they get four weeks. This is in addition to our normal holidays off. If you take five consecutive work days off and promise not to log on to work in any way, shape, or form during that time, we’ll give you $1,000 bonus. In other words, we want to kick you out of work and encourage you to actually take your vacation days every year. We also offer flexible scheduling in the first year after a child’s birth so that new parents can transition back to work in the way that works best for them.
- 12 weeks paid maternity / 4 weeks paid paternity leave per child – when you have a child, you deserve time to recover, bond with your new family member, and adjust to your new reality at home. New mothers get 12 weeks of paid maternity leave and new fathers get 4 weeks. We’ve yet to have anyone on the team adopt a child, have a child through surrogate, or welcome a child as LGBTQ parents. We’ll add to and adjust this benefit as necessary to support these parents.
- $2,500 equipment budget every two years – when you work from anywhere, your equipment needs are unique, so we give teammates the flexibility to use this budget however they see fit so long it relates to work. This is over and above job-specific equipment (if you’re host of a podcast for our marketing, we’re not going to make you use your equipment budget to purchase recording equipment).
- One conference of your choice every year – ongoing learning is one of the most fundamental skills we encourage at ConvertKit. One of the ways we emphasize this is by paying all expenses for each teammate to attend a conference of their choice each year.
- Bi-annual team retreats – Twice a year, we fly the entire team to a central location for a week of strategy, fun, bonding, and exploration. We split our time between fun activities like boating, zoo tours, or paintball; relaxing activities like meditation, yoga, or massages; strategic planning and dreaming; and team work sessions. There’s plenty of free time over meals and in the evenings to hang out and get to know each other better as well.
- Powder/surf days – some days are too perfect to be stuck inside working at a computer. When a surge rolls in or the powder falls in droves on the mountain or it’s simply the perfect day to sit in a park and read an entire book… we encourage our team to take that day and enjoy it. We ask them to make it up later on a weekend or by working a couple extra hours the rest of the days that week. The only stipulation: don’t completely neglect customers or teammates who are depending on you.
That’s the full benefits package at ConvertKit as of July 2019. I’ll update on an ongoing basis as we continue to grow.
Have interesting benefits you’re offering that you think we should consider in the future? I’d love to hear about them on Twitter.