One of the strategies we employed at Pardot was taken right out of the Google playbook: lavish employees with great benefits. Internally, we focused on providing benefits that were in the 99th percentile of all companies and salaries in the 60th percentile. People would always comment, “your benefits must be crazy expensive — we can’t afford those because we’re a startup.” It’s true that our benefits became more robust as we went from the early stage to the growth stage, but we still had strong benefits as soon as we could afford them.
One of the ways I like to think of benefits is in relation to salary. Let’s say these are the main benefits per person:
- Health Insurance – $5,000/year
- Dental Insurance – $600/year
- Short and Long Term Disability – $600/year
- 4 Hours of Housecleaning Per Month – $1,200/year
- Catered Lunches – $2,400/year
- Snacks and Drinks – $1,200/year
- Total – $11,000/year
Let’s assume the average salary is $80,000/year across all job functions. At $11,000/year for benefits, that’s roughly 14% of the average salary. We found that amazing benefits translated into stronger loyalty, more frequent employee referrals, and a better working environment. While these benefits might seem expensive, they were incredibly valuable to us.
What else? What are some other thoughts on benefits as a percentage of salary?
David Cummings on Startups 
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