12 tech companies with the smallest pay gaps

Equal Pay Day was initiated to shed light on a persistent problem: On average, women earn $0.78 for every dollar a man earns.

But not all companies have such a big gap. Salary comparison site Comparably has compiled a list of the dozen tech companies with the smallest pay gaps — each has a gap of less than 3 percent for men and women with similar jobs.

In alphabetical order, the 12 tech companies with the smallest pay gaps are Adobe, Apple, Comcast, eBay, Google, Intel, Intuit, PayPal, Salesforce, T-Mobile, Verizon and Workday.

To compile this list, Comparably analyzed data from tens of thousands of median salary records from male and female employees at Fortune 500 public tech companies, as well as private companies that are unicorns. In addition to the salary data, Comparably also included the satisfaction ratings of female employees, comparing their answers to survey questions, to those from their male counterparts.

This list does not address the diversity of companies' overall employee base or the breakdown of management and leadership roles.

Comparably CEO Jason Nazar, says their data has revealed smaller pay gaps at tech companies than at companies outside the industry: "There's still room for improvement at tech companies when it comes to the gender pay gap, but they're generally the best actors when it comes to the pay gap, especially for mid and senior level roles."

"Now we're seeing multiple companies coming out saying they're specifically addressing the gender gap — Google spent money to address that pay gap," says Nazar. "Companies like Salesforce are going back and reviewing salaries of men and women who have similar years' experience and making sure they don't have disparities."

In fact, eight of the 12 companies on the list drew higher scores from women than from men in response to questions about whether they believe they're paid fairly, if they're satisfied with stock/equity compensatio, and if they're satisfied with their benefits. The company on the list with the biggest gap — in women's favor — was eBay: Women ranked their compensation and benefits 8 percent better than men, followed by Intuit, whose rankings by women were 5 percent better than men, and Adobe, at 4 percent.

There are also intangible benefits to the way certain companies handle compensation. One Salesforce employee told Comparably, "They pay very fairly and are continuously benchmarking against the industry," while another said, "You don't have to beg for raise. Compensation is based on what skills and talent you bring to the table."

Nazar says the fact that these 12 companies scored so well on both salary data shared with Comparably and the qualitative surveys is in line with their reputations as companies with the best corporate cultures.

"It's not a surprise that a factor that drives happy employees is when they feel like they're being treated respectfully and honorably. A huge part of that is being paid fairly, both overall in the market and between male and female peers."

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