Open: Buffer’s Transparency Dashboard

Since 2013, we’ve been open with Buffer’s finances and our team’s salaries, among many other metrics. We share openly because we believe in the power of transparency to build trust, hold us accountable to a high standard, and push our industry forward. This is a dashboard for anyone to see how we’re building Buffer.

Company Metrics

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Salary Calculator

I'm a and I live in a high cost of living city (e.g. New York, London)

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Transparent Salaries

Joel

Caro

Maria

Åsa

Mandy

Jenna

Jenny

Kyle

Nick

Mike E

Hailley

Sophie

Adnan

Andy

Boris

Eric

Hamish

Joe

Jordan

José

Mike S

Phil

Steven

Eduardo

Maya

Sol

Dinos

Dianne

Dace

Mick

Prateek

Gabi

Carlos

Peter

Arek

Heather Y

Ethan

Daisy

Henry

Diego

Amanda

Steve

Sofia

Ismail

Julian

Adam

Daniel S

Danny

Darcy

Dave C

Hannah

Jess

Julia

Juliet

Karinna

Kelly

Nate

Octa

Ross

Essence

Mel

James W

Cheryl

Lexi

Ben

Simon

Tami

Martin

Mitra

Phill

Abeeb

Jacob

Esther

Daniel P

Nathan

Brandon

Kate

Raf

Kateryna

4-Day Work Week

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of team are happier with a 4DWW

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of team take fewer days off ill

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of our team get all work done in the 4DWW

Time off Taken

Books

Wishy Washy: A Board Book of First Words and Colors for Growing Minds

The Dragon's Promise (Six Crimson Cranes)

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

Discipline Is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control (The Stoic Virtues Series)

Prediction Machines, Updated and Expanded: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence

Map

Meet our global team

Open Blog

Read blog posts where we document what we learn as we build Buffer differently.

Open

How We’re Reorganizing 216 Articles in Our Help Center

Nobody wants to hear they’re outdated… stale… or old. That’s exactly what we had to face, though. Throughout the days, months, and years, our Help Center, where we keep up to date articles about Buffer for our customers, had become just that. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a ton of great content in there. That’s the problem, though. There’s just too much, and the content has started to become less and less reflective of Buffer: the product it is meant to support. There are four of us on the team w

Open

We’re Opening A Talent Pool — Here’s What To Do If You’re Interested

We’re opening up a Talent Pool! In this post, we outline why and what you'll need to know to join.

Open

How Buffer’s Content Team Uses AI

In this article, the Buffer Content team shares exactly how and where we use AI in our work.

Open

How We Connect Our Engineers Directly To Buffer Customers with Customer Engineering Days

While connecting the team to our customers has always been a priority for us at Buffer, how the team has connected with customers has changed quite a bit over the years. When I first joined Buffer in 2015, the team would have a dedicated time when everyone would spend an hour answering customer support emails at our annual company retreat. During these sessions, our Customer Advocates would provide support for the entire Buffer team as they answered customer emails. It was an awesome bonding ex

A timeline of transparency at Buffer

Here's an overview of the transparency timeline at Buffer, as you saw above, much of the company is transparent. Here's more of the story of when that happened and how it came about.

2010

The first version of Buffer, the product, was launched November 30th, 2010. The launch appeared on Hacker News as a part of the November Startup Sprint.

2011

In early 2011, our co-founder CEO, Joel Gascoigne, started publicly sharing several milestones around Buffer users. The first example was reaching 500 signups.

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At the end of 2011, we raised $450,000 and shared the names of the 19 investors and how we met them.

2013

In February 2013, Joel emailed the team to share the first iteration of our salary formula along with sharing the whole team's salaries transparently internally.

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In March 2013, our equity formula was made transparent internally as well.

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In May, we published the exact fundraising deck used in the 2012 seed round

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In September, we shared our first investor's update publicly.

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In October Buffer was hacked, and we shared our live blog with updates on the situation publicly.

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In December, we were ready to share salaries externally, and we published the spreadsheet with our salaries.

2014

Our equity formula, which was made internally transparent in 2013, was made externally transparent in April of 2014.

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In the same month, we added a public revenue dashboard with real-time revenue numbers.

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In October, we raised a transparent Series A round where we shared our valuation term sheet.

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In December, we shared a pricing breakdown of exactly where your money goes if you were paying $10 for Buffer.

2015

We shared our first diversity dashboard in June, along with our full diversity stats.

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In November, we made an update to iterate on our salary formula.

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We released the first version of our salary calculator, which anyone could use to see what they would get paid if they worked at Buffer.

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In December, we acquired Respondly and shared as much of the process transparently as we were able to.

2016

In April, we launched a public Trello board with our product roadmap that is still operational and up to date.

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In June, we had a cash-flow crisis resulting in several financial changes at Buffer, including a round of lay offs.

2017

In February, our COO and CTO decided to leave Buffer. We shared more about this change and the vision for the future of Buffer.

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In April, we shared Buffer's first Equal Pay report, a report that detailed what men and women earned at Buffer.

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In December, we had our first profit share of $300,000 and charitable donation of $50,000.

2018

In August, we decided to spend $3.3 Million buying out our VC investors as it was clear that Buffer had become less of a fit for VC funding.

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In the same month, we shared our company budget and operating expenses transparently.

2019

In June, after two years of successful profit sharing, we shared our formula for profit sharing and charitable contributions.

2020

In April, we shared every team communication we had around COVID-19.

2021

We moved our transparent salaries from a spreadsheet to a table more prominently displayed on our website and added in a clear depiction of our salary formula and compensation philosophy.

Tools

Channels

Open: Buffer’s Transparency Dashboard

Company Metrics

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Salary Calculator

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Transparent Salaries

4-Day Work Week

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62%

84%

Time off Taken

Books

Map

Open Blog

How We’re Reorganizing 216 Articles in Our Help Center

We’re Opening A Talent Pool — Here’s What To Do If You’re Interested

How Buffer’s Content Team Uses AI

How We Connect Our Engineers Directly To Buffer Customers with Customer Engineering Days

A timeline of transparency at Buffer

Tools

Channels

Open: Buffer’s Transparency Dashboard

Company Metrics

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Salary Calculator

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Transparent Salaries

4-Day Work Week

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62%

84%

Time off Taken

Books

Map

Open Blog

How We’re Reorganizing 216 Articles in Our Help Center

We’re Opening A Talent Pool — Here’s What To Do If You’re Interested

How Buffer’s Content Team Uses AI

How We Connect Our Engineers Directly To Buffer Customers with Customer Engineering Days

A timeline of transparency at Buffer

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