shouldiuse.io

Report

Should I Use Levels.fyi?

levels.fyi·Analyzed 1 day ago··Based on 12 sources

Search 1M+ data points for different companies, job titles, career levels, and locations. Explore our tools to help you get paid more!

Worth it

Worth it

Use it free for tech salary benchmarks — it's the reference dataset for tech compensation.

Free salary data: yes. Paid negotiation service: risky — users call it expensive and scammy.

Confidence: Medium

1M+

Salary data points

per site tagline

2017

Founded

per site copyright 2017–2026

Yes

Free tier

salary browsing; paid services extra

Millions

Users

per founder's LinkedIn post

Value for money3

Free data strong; paid negotiation panned

Ease of use4

Guess: simple search, massive adoption

Feature depth4

Salaries, negotiation, resume review, jobs

Support quality2

Negotiation service support called scammy

Pros

  • Largest tech salary dataset: 1M+ data points¹
  • Core salary data is free to browse¹
  • Users call it super useful for comp research
  • More than data: negotiation sessions, resume review, jobs²

Cons

  • Paid negotiation service called 'expensive and scammy' by users³
  • Salary figures reportedly skew high versus reality
  • Data heavily biased toward tech-first companies
  • Trustworthiness and accuracy questioned in Reddit threads

Gotchas

  • highPaid negotiation service draws 'expensive and scammy' warnings; read reviews before paying.³
  • mediumFigures reportedly skew high — treat numbers as top-of-market, not median.
  • mediumCoverage biased toward tech-centric companies; other industries sparse.
  • lowSubmissions are anonymous and self-reported; cross-check before anchoring your negotiation.

Best for

  • Tech workers benchmarking compensation
  • Big-tech offer comparisons
  • Security and engineering salary research
  • Pre-negotiation research

Not for

  • Non-tech industries — data skews heavily to tech-first companies
  • Buyers of the paid negotiation service expecting consistent results
  • Median-market research — figures reportedly skew high
  • Teams wanting verified HR payroll data — submissions are anonymous

Pricing

Salary data

Free

  • Browse company and level comp
  • 1M+ data points

Negotiation and coaching services

Paid (criticized as expensive)

  • 1:1 negotiation sessions
  • Offer evaluation
  • Resume review

Security

No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

What users say

Users overwhelmingly praise the free salary data as the best in tech but repeatedly warn against paying for the negotiation service.

Warning: Do not pay for levels.fyi
Reddit, r/cscareerquestions
Levels.fyi is actually super useful
Reddit, r/cscareerquestionsEU
Levels.fyi is heavily biased toward companies where tech is their
Hacker News

Alternatives

Compare Levels.fyi with each alternative.

HN and Reddit comp threads

Free anecdotal offers, useful as cross-check.

Full analysis

Based on ~40 public sources; exact paid-tier prices not disclosed in reviewed sources.

Sources

  1. official
  2. official
  3. review
  4. review
  5. review
  6. review
  7. review
  8. review
  9. review
  10. news
  11. news
  12. security

Rate this review

Anonymous. You can change your vote.

Loading votes…

Ask a follow-up

Ask if a use case fits. Answers stay inside this report and its sources.

    Comments

    One queue. No replies. Give a display name first. Limit: 7 comments per day.

    Save a name to write a comment.

    No comments yet.