You want to become a Product Manager, but you don’t know what salary to expect. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. According to Glassdoor, the average Product Manager salary in the US is $108,992, compared to the Canadian average of $85,000.
Still, there’s a variance in salary according to what state you’re in and what experience level you bring to the table. And that’s not to mention the difference that depends on whether you’re at a startup, mid-sized company, or working for big tech. When it comes to prospective Product Manager salaries, there may be an average, but not two salary offers are the same.
Follow along with the video as we unpack everything you need to know about Product Manager salary:
What’s a Reasonable Salary to Expect as a First-Time Product Manager?
A Product Manager posting tends to be accompanied by a typical salary ranging from $63,000 to over $200,000. Obviously, as the Product Manager postings become more senior in nature, the higher the salary will become. Therefore, when you’re first starting out with a Product Manager role, expect the lower end of this scale, but the specifics will depend on other factors, such as location, industry etc, all variations that will be covered further in this article.
Furthermore, when you’re first starting out in a Prodcut Manager role, you’ll be expected to value experience more than the initial salary, thus enabling you to establish your career and helping you to expect a higher salary once you have a few more years under your belt.
How Does Salary Vary By Company Size?
It’s normal to expect variations in salary depending on the size and experience of the organization. Think about it: a start-up tends to have less revenue to spend on higher wages, whereas larger organizations will want to maintain its reputation and success by attracting top-class workers that will advertise a higher salary.
Smaller companies and startups tend to pay less in salary and more in equity, with larger organizations offering the opposite. However, when it comes to FAANG organizations (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google), there is a much larger discrepancy, with the base salary tending to be $160-$200k and with equity ranging around $400k-$1m over four years.
How Do Location, Experience, Education, and Industry Affect Salary?
There are four main factors that will affect your salary as a Product Manager:
- Location
- Experience
- Education
- Industry
Location
Location impacts a Product Manager salary in two respects: the cost of living and demand.
- Cost of living: If you are working in Downtown LA, your salary will tend to be higher than it would in say Austin, Texas, simply because there is a massive variation in living costs.
- Demand vs supply: if there is an abundance of Product Manager roles but very few people coming forward, then demand outweighs the supply, making the wage higher to attract potential applicants.
Let’s look at it another way and delve deeper by looking at various cities of the US and how much they tend to pay (%) above the National average salary:
Applying such a framework to Product Managers emphasizes just how instrumental location is to determining salary.
Education
Education impacts the salary can impact upon what Product Manager roles you can apply for and how attractive a prospect you are to an organization, thus the salary they are willing to offer you. Most Product Managers tend to have a college degree, and although this doesn’t tend to have much impact on the salary, it does affect the chances of landing a job post graduation.
Other ways in which education can improve your Product Manager salary include:
- Having an advanced qualification, such as an MBA
- Having a college degree that relates to finance, computer science or business as these develop skills that are vital to the Product Manager role, and are therefore, desirable.
- Attending a school that have created specialised career tracks for becoming a Product Manager, such as Harvard Business School or Cornell University
- Obtaining professional certifications or continuing educational courses. These enable you to learn and receive accreditations that contribute to a Product Manager role’s craft and understanding of the job.
Experience
Experience is similar somewhat to education, in the sense that the more experience you have, the more likely you’ll be able to access the higher skilled and paid jobs. Along with education and expertise, experience contributes to determining the rank of Product Manager job you can apply for. You can find a chart or different salaries for Product Manager of different ranks in New York and San Francisco here.
Industry
Some fast growing industries, especially those depending upon technology, have a higher demand for product managers, thus are more likely to pay higher salaries to feed such demand. Here are some of the highest paying industries within the US at the moment:
- Aerospace and defense: $106,000
- Banking and financial services: $98,000
- Computer software: $107,000
- Consulting: $106,000
- Energy and utilities: $119,000
- Information technology: $104,000
- Internet and tech: $116,000
- Recruiting and staffing: $99,000
- Telecommunications: $108,000
- Transportation and logistics: $96,000
Remember, there will be salary variations across the different industries. But whatever industry you’re looking to break into as a Product Manager, you’re sure to encounter interview questions about salary. It can be tricky to hold onto this knowledge and convert it into a great interview answer. Check out this video for answer templates and tips on how to answer the salary question in a Product Manager interview:
How Does Product Manager Salary Compare to Other Product Roles?
We’ve already touched on the fact that experience, expertise, and education affect the ranking of Product Manager roles and thus the salary you should expect. The same concept can be applied when you consider Product Manager salary vs Head of Product salary, or the Product Owner salary. Different roles have different rankings and require different levels of experience. Therefore it makes sense that they earn different salaries.
For example, in the US, a Director of Product Management salary averages out at $169,859, whereas the Product Owner salary averages out at $108,932.
Full Breakdown by Role and Location
We did a salary deep dive to gather all the facts and figures of average Product Manager salaries in America’s top cities for tech, in one easy-to-reference place. Please note that different sources might have different names for different seniority levels. For example, a mid-level position (called “Mid” here) is usually listed simply as Product Manager.
New York Product Manager Salary
| Source | Associate | Mid | Senior Product Manager | Director of Product Management | VP of Product |
| Glassdoor | $84,511 | $113,220 | $146,529 | $169,388 | $176,230 |
| BuiltIn | $89,500 | $128,090 | $153,909 | $172,783 | $214,570 |
| Indeed | $83,306 | $114,329 | $129,963 | $164,101 | $209,474 |
San Franscisco Product Manager Salary
| Source | Associate | Mid | Senior Product Manager | Director of Product Management | VP of Product |
| Glassdoor | $103,677 | $130,566 | $164,004 | $200,537 | $201,004 |
| BuiltIn | – | $161,720 | $178,446 | $223,854 | $254,964 |
| Indeed | $102,959 | $102,959 | $161,751 | $204,026 | $204,825 |
Boston Product Manager Salary
| Source | Associate | Mid | Senior Product Manager | Director of Product Management | VP of Product |
| Glassdoor | $83,679 | $113,337 | $145,498 | $173,769 | $180,589 |
| BuiltIn | $86,367 | $118,121 | $139,500 | $171,111 | $215,431 |
| Indeed | $116,668 | $113,454 | $129,095 | $154,163 | $192,671 |
Portland Product Manager Salary
| Source | Associate | Mid | Senior Product Manager | Director of Product Management | VP of Product |
| Glassdoor | $73,750 | $106,262 | $139,944 | $154,446 | $185,685 |
| Indeed | $96,201 | $101,711 | $121,788 | $135,277 | $192,651 |
Seattle Product Manager Salary
| Source | Associate | Mid | Senior Product Manager | Director of Product Management | VP of Product |
| Glassdoor | $91,687 | $121,655 | $150,129 | $188,356 | $193,483 |
| BuiltIn | $94,750 | $129,896 | $154,051 | $186,628 | $204,750 |
| Indeed | $92,531 | $92,531 | $145,544 | $173,730 | $199,374 |
Austin Product Manager Salary
| Source | Associate | Mid | Senior Product Manager | Director of Product Management | VP of Product |
| Glassdoor | $82,175 | $108,658 | $140,223 | $166,066 | $180,883 |
| BuiltIn | $95,280 | $114,242 | $137,721 | $170,694 | $191,412 |
| Indeed | $83,236 | $92,818 | $130,274 | $123,157 | $153,760 |
Los Angeles Product Manager Salary
| Source | Associate | Mid | Senior Product Manager | Director of Product Management | VP of Product |
| Glassdoor | $103,677 | $138,406 | $164,004 | $200,537 | $178,269 |
| BuiltIn | $76,900 | $123,789 | $150,073 | $170,569 | $215,000 |
| Indeed | $92,531 | $99,744 | $145,544 | $173,730 | $199,374 |
Atlanta Product Manager Salary
| Source | Associate | Mid | Senior Product Manager | Director of Product Management | VP of Product |
| Glassdoor | $77,529 | $106,559 | $181,628 | $164,914 | $179,724 |
| Indeed | $63,676 | $100,680 | $111,651 | $153,499 | $217,229 |
How to Use Your Salary Knowledge
Once you know have evaluated your experience, location, and other salary-deciding factors, you can go into your Product Manager interview prepared and fully aware of your worth. Learn to negotiate an offer that’s fair for your level:
Looking for more advice on how to tackle the question of salary for your next Product Manager job? Training Product Manager job hunters on how to close job interviews into offers is just one way we support our members.
If you have questions about how to set your salary expectations, how to deal with answering the salary question in an interview, or other job-hunting strategies, reach out to us! Our career coaches are currently offering free 30-minute coaching sessions. Schedule your one-on-one coaching session today.
