Compare · CauseComp vs. Candid
CauseComp vs. Candid: which fits your organization?
Candid's Nonprofit Compensation Report is the recognized annual reference for nonprofit executive pay — published for over 20 years, built from IRS filings, and widely cited by boards and consultants. CauseComp starts from the same public IRS data but delivers it differently: an interactive platform that models benchmarks to your organization's budget size, sector, and geography, projects them to the current year, and covers your whole staff — not just the executive team.
If your board wants the sector's standard annual reference on the table, the Candid report belongs there. If it wants to know what a specific role at an organization like yours should earn today — and what the rest of the staff should earn too — that's the question CauseComp was built to answer.
What does each product cover?
Candid's report analyzes 14 top leadership positions (CEO/executive director, top financial position, top HR position, and so on) as aggregated categories, with breakdowns by budget size, cause area, geography (national, state, and 285 metropolitan areas), and gender. It is an annual report: you buy this year's edition and read the tables it contains. There is no product for staff-level roles.
CauseComp covers both sides of the org chart, interactively: the Executive product models 100+ named executive roles from 610,000+ Schedule J compensation records across 110,000+ organizations, calibrated to your budget size, sector, and location; the Workforce product covers 850+ staff roles across ~390 metros from BLS wage data with a nonprofit/private-sector toggle. You enter your organization's parameters and get percentiles for your situation, not the table cell nearest to it.
How current is the data?
Candid's own product page states the current (2025) edition is built from fiscal year 2023 filings — a function of how 990 data works, not a flaw in their process. IRS filings are always 18–30 months old by the time they are public, and a report bought in mid-2026 reflects the pay market of 2023.
CauseComp models the same class of IRS data and then projects it to the current year using the BLS Employment Cost Index and current job-posting signals. Every benchmark shows its data vintage. When the compensation committee asks "what is reasonable today," a three-year-old table and a current-year projection are different answers.
What does each cost?
Candid: $449 for the single-user report, $1,199 for the multi-user (organization-wide) license. One edition, refreshed annually — staying current means buying next year's report.
CauseComp: a one-time Board Report at $349 (one position, board-ready PDF with a §4958 comparables set — credited toward Professional within 90 days), Essential at $588/yr (workforce benchmarking), and Professional at $996/yr with unlimited benchmarks, comparables sets, and board-ready PDFs for every role in the organization — executive and staff — all year.
Comparison at a glance
| CauseComp | Candid | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | Interactive platform — enter your org's parameters | Annual report (static tables) |
| Executive coverage | 100+ named roles, modeled to budget, sector, geography | 14 aggregated leadership positions |
| Staff/workforce benchmarks | Yes — 850+ roles, ~390 metros (BLS) | No |
| Data currency | Projected to current year (ECI + posting signals), vintage shown | FY2023 filings (2025 edition) |
| Data breadth | 610,000+ Schedule J records, 110,000+ orgs | 130,794 nonprofits (990 + 990-EZ) |
| §4958 comparability support | Comparables sets + board-ready PDF, generated per organization | Report tables usable as a comparability source |
| Gender pay analysis | No | Yes — breakdowns by gender |
| Delivery | Self-serve, immediate; unlimited under subscription | PDF report purchase |
| Pricing | $349 one-time or $996/yr unlimited (Professional) | $449 single-user / $1,199 multi-user, per annual edition |
When is Candid the right choice?
Honestly: Candid is the incumbent standard for a reason. If your board wants the sector's most recognized annual reference — 20+ years of publication, IRS-data-based, with incumbent-level and gender analysis CauseComp doesn't offer — the report earns its place. Researchers and grantmakers studying sector-wide trends are squarely its audience. And because the reasonableness process should rest on multiple independent sources, many boards will reasonably put Candid's report and CauseComp's model side by side.
When is CauseComp the right choice?
Choose CauseComp when the question is specific rather than sector-wide: what should your ED earn at your budget size in your state, this year — and what should the development director and the staff accountant earn while you're at it. Choose it when you want benchmarks that reflect today's market rather than FY2023 filings, when 14 aggregated positions don't include the role you're benchmarking, when you want to explore scenarios interactively rather than read fixed tables, and when you want a licensed path to an actual compensation consultant if the situation turns complex.
Start with CauseComp
Benchmark your whole org — executive and staff — with current-year projections and board-ready documentation. One-time Board Report from $349, or Professional at $996/yr.
Use both
The reasonableness process rests on multiple independent sources. Candid's annual report and CauseComp's current-year model make a defensible pair.
Frequently asked questions
Do CauseComp and Candid use the same data?
Both build from IRS filings. Candid's report analyzes 990 and 990-EZ data from 130,794 nonprofits (FY2023, per the 2025 edition). CauseComp models 610,000+ Schedule J compensation records across 110,000+ organizations and projects them to the current year; its Workforce product adds BLS wage data Candid's report doesn't cover.
Which one satisfies the IRS §4958 comparability-data requirement?
Either can serve as comparability data; neither grants the rebuttable presumption by itself. The presumption requires advance approval by an independent board body, appropriate comparability data, and contemporaneous documentation. Many advisors recommend multiple data sources — Candid and CauseComp can both be part of that set.
Why do the prices work so differently?
Candid sells an annual publication: one purchase, one edition, organization pricing available. CauseComp sells access to a model: a subscription covers unlimited benchmarks across every role, refreshed as federal data updates, plus one-time Board Reports for single decisions.
Is Candid's bigger organization count better data?
It's different data. Candid's 130,794 organizations include 990-EZ filers analyzed into 14 position categories. CauseComp's corpus is built from Schedule J — the detailed compensation disclosure — and curated into a modeling dataset of 610,000+ records across 110,000+ organizations, because calibrated benchmarks require records a model can learn from, not just count.
Neither of these is legal advice, right?
Correct. Both products provide data to support board deliberations. Organizations should consult counsel on §4958 process questions.
See where you land. View a sample benchmark, compare the tiers, or talk it through — even if the right answer is the annual report and not a subscription.
Candid facts current as of July 2026, from candid.org/nonprofit-compensation-report; verify current pricing and edition at candid.org before relying on this page. CauseComp provides data and documentation to support board deliberations — not legal advice. Not affiliated with Candid.