These numbers did not come from a salary survey.
These insights came from sitting down with 45 leaders across Canada and the USA: VP People, Chief People Officers and Heads of HR.
We discussed their career objectives, asked them what they earn today and what they would move for.
34 of the 45 opened up about their compensation.
THE US DATA, 2022
19 People leaders, mostly VP People or CPO at B2B SaaS companies between 300 and 1,500 employees.
The range on base alone was $170K to $325K.
Same seniority. Same function. Nearly double.
The top of the market
$270K to $325K base.
4 leaders sat here. What they had in common was not the size of the company they were at. It was that they had personally scaled one through hypergrowth: 120 to 1,000, 170 to 900, 386 to 700, 400 to 1,400.
Three of the four had no bonus at all. Their upside was equity.
The middle
$225K to $250K base, plus a bonus of 25% to 40%.
This is where most senior People leaders actually sit. Cash compensation lands between $275K and $340K once the bonus pays. Equity exists on most of these packages but is rarely quantified to the candidate in a way they can repeat back to you.
The bottom
$170K to $210K base, plus 20% to 30%.
Two things put people here. Either they were the senior-most HR person at a company that was large but not growing, or they were a function head reporting into someone else, however big the company.
The lowest base in the entire US group belonged to someone running People for a 1,500-person organization. The second highest total package belonged to a Chief People Officer at a company of 75 people.
THE CANADIAN DATA
18 people. All B2B SaaS companies between 70 and 350 employees.
Base range: $150K to $300K.
The top of the Canadian market
$250K to $300K+ base.
Three leaders in the 2025 group were at or above $250K base, and two of those were above $300K once the bonus is counted. All three had scaled a company through the 100-to-200 range or well past it, and two had done it more than once.
The middle
$226K to $240K base, plus a bonus of 20% to 35%.
This is the typical comp for a VP People at a Canadian B2B SaaS company of 100 to 300 people in 2025. Total cash falls between $270K and $300K.
The bottom
$150K to $210K base, plus 20%.
Every leader in this band was the senior-most People person at a company under 100 people, or a director-level leader inside a larger one.
WHAT ACTUALLY IMPACTS COMPENSATION
Not the size of the company they are at now.
That was the single most surprising thing in the data, and it held in both markets and both years.
What impacts the comp is how far they have personally scaled a company. Someone who took a business from 100 to 200 people earns differently from someone who has run People for 200 people that were already there.
The second lever is whether they were the top of the function. Leaders who reported to a CEO were consistently $40K to $70K above leaders with the same title who reported into a CHRO or a COO.
The third is bonus structure, and it works backwards. At the top of this market, the bonus disappears, and the equity gets large. In the middle, the bonus is the largest single variable in the package.
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