Tech Impact Awards 2013: Software as a Service

WINNER: PAYSCALE

Location: Seattle | Employees: 125 | payscale.com

Its the first question on everyones mind, yet often the last question asked: What does this job pay? The goal of PayScale is to make available to all the kind of market-based answer that until now only few could receive.

What employees get for their work is often tightly guarded information, available only through specialized consulting and market surveys based on small samples, and out of reach for small businesses and job seekers. PayScale brings cloud computing and Big Data analytics to the problem, having built a data set of more than 35 million individual compensation profiles.

PayScale brings the power of the cloud and of Big Data to companies looking to get compensation right so that they can compete for talent, says CEO Mike Metzger. Weve created an innovative model for sourcing salary profiles to better understand the real-time, local dynamics of compensation.

Some of that information is from employees themselves, who can learn at no cost what others with similar skills and education are paid in their markets. The rest comes directly from the more than 2,500 employers who subscribe for access to PayScales up-to-the-minute data and reports.

PayScales 40 percent growth in subscriptions last year confirms that it has the right idea. Metzger says midmarket companies are eating it up because each new hire has its cost, but when the employer and the employee both know the wage is fair, the resulting harmony is priceless.