Most salary websites publish a single figure and leave you to trust it. When that number has to survive a negotiation, a board conversation, an audit, or a courtroom, trust is not enough. This guide lays out how to tell defensible pay data from the rest.

Inside, you will find:

• The four questions to ask of any pay figure before you rely on it
• The two primary sources compensation professionals actually trust, and why
• How to tell an engagement-grade market pricing from a reference number

WePayFairly is a Grahall company. We design executive pay programs and testify about reasonable compensation, so the data we publish has to meet the bar we are held to in those rooms.