Being the chief executive officer of a startup evidently isn’t quite as lucrative as it once was, according to Kruze Consulting.

The startup accounting and CFO consulting firm servicing more than 800 venture funded startup clients released new data on CEO salaries last week.

While the salaries of startup CEOs declined on average, Kruze Consulting indicated early-stage CEOs saw modest pay increases and Series B CEOs endured a 10% pay cut.

The researched also showed the pay gap between female and male CEOs remained persistent at $14,000 but expanded on a percentage basis due to the decline in average salaries.

In 2019, the gender pay gap was $5,000 then expanded to $45,000 during the pandemic, according to Kruze Consulting. Since 2020, researchers found that it’s recovered somewhat but has remained at $14,000, around 10%, for the past two years.

Since professional startup investors are typically involved in executive pay decisions, Kruze Consulting pointed out that this is a place where venture capital firms have an opportunity to affect change.

“We’ve conducted this study annually since 2018 in order to equip Founders and investors with the data they need to make informed decisions when approaching executive compensation,” Kruze Consulting said in a news release highlighted the report’s availability.

Kruze Consulting went on to mention the average startup CEO salary was $142,000 in 2023 and slightly declined to $141,000 in 2024.

For CEOs of Series B startups, Kruze Consulting said the average salary declined almost 10% from $251,000 last year to $227,000 in 2024. Series A CEOs saw a 6.5% increase in salaries, up from $168,000 in 2023 to $179,000 in 2024. Seed stage CEO pay averages increased 2.3%, from $129,000 in 2023 to $132,000 in 2024.

Kruze Consulting said only the best startups were able to raise Seed and Series A rounds recently, driving the increase in CEO pay.

“The past two years have been very difficult for Series B and beyond companies to fundraise, so those executives are responding by keeping executive compensation lower to preserve capital,” Kruze Consulting said.

Kruze Consulting highlighted its report, based on anonymized payroll data, is the longest running and largest startup CEO salary report in the world.

“The CEO salary data collected this year reflects some resilience in the early-stage startup ecosystem and turmoil in the later stage market. Seed and Series A startups saw solid pay moves whereas Series B CEOs’ salaries came down on average. While the volume of funding rounds was lower, the quality of companies that raised Seed and Series A rounds were strong, and their CEOs were able to command better pay compared to the prior year,” said Healy Jones, vice president at Kruze Consulting.

“The gender pay gap is concerning, because it hasn’t recovered to 2019 levels since the massive discrepancy that opened up during the pandemic,” Jones added.