Cascade partners with Payscale to provide you with an industry-leading online compensation platform. Move beyond static, once-a-year surveys and gain unlimited access to a dynamic database for precise, on-demand wage comparisons. Purchase your subscription today to gain comprehensive wage and salary information on over 5,000 positions at a national and regional level.
What's Included?
A subscription to Payscale includes access to two separate data sets: Explore and Peer.
Whether you are benchmarking a new role or auditing your entire pay structure, our tools provide the clarity needed to recruit and retain top talent.
Top Features of Payscale include:
A subscription to Payscale is included for Premium and Pro members. If you are a Premium or Pro member, contact us to get started with the participation process. If you are unsure, please check your membership type before purchasing. Essential or Small Business members must log in to purchase a subscription.
All users are required to submit their own organization’s compensation data before accessing Payscale. After your purchase order is received, or after your request to participate is confirmed for Premium and Pro members, Cascade will provide participation materials and submission instructions. Platform access will be granted only after your data has been successfully submitted. If you choose not to participate, access will not be provided and no refund will be issued.
All new subscriptions expire on December 31, 2026.
Q: What is Payscale?
A. Payscale is an online compensation data collection platform that Cascade is partnering with to provide even more reliable and valid compensation data on approximately 5,000 jobs. The site consists of two data sources: Peer and Explore. The Peer data set consists of employer-reported compensation data for internal positions. This allows users to price jobs against true pay rates. The Explore data set uses geographic differentials created from the Peer set, along with proprietary calculations and AI modeling to predict wages.
Q: How do I get access?
A. A subscription to Payscale is included for Premium and Pro members. Essential and Small members must purchase a subscription for access. All subscription types must participate and submit their data before their account can be activated. Payscale is not available to non-members. Non-members that wish to take advantage of the deep discount available for members are encouraged to purchase a Cascade membership.
Q: Does this replace partnering with the Cascade Compensation Consulting Team?
A. No. Payscale is replacing our Regional Pay Survey and is just a single source of compensation data. Our team puts together a comprehensive report utilizing multiple data sources. When making important decisions that will impact your business, it’s important that you utilize multiple sources of data. Payscale is a great resource for data, but it’s only one data point and not sufficient for a full market analysis. We recommend utilizing at least three different market sources to ensure that you are accurately capturing the market for your role. Further, our team helps you develop your full compensation program including your philosophy, structure and ensuring pay equity.
Q: How does Payscale relate to Cascade’s Regional Pay Survey?
A. Payscale has replaced Cascade’s traditional Regional Pay Survey. All past participants or purchasers of the Regional Pay Survey are encouraged to participate in Payscale to boost the regional data set available in Payscale and to get access to thousands of job matches for compensation benchmarking.
Q: What is the participation process?
A. Once we receive your purchase order (Essential or Small member) or your request to participate (Premium or Pro member), we will follow up with an Excel sheet template and instructions on how to participate. Once completed, you can submit your finished sheet via email or secure upload site. Cascade will then review your submission to ensure completion and no errors, then will turn on your Payscale access.
Q: What are the participation requirements?
Q: Am I purchasing a full year's access to Payscale?
A. Our access is on a January to December cycle, so you are purchasing access from your date of purchase until December 31st.
Q: How “real-time” is Payscale’s data?
A. Payscale’s data is refreshed daily with eligible data available to enter the common data pool. By that, Payscale holds data entered for 90 days before adding it to the larger database to meet DOJ’s antitrust guidelines. So you may not see compensation data entered on a particular day but you will see the freshest data that is in line with antitrust guidelines.
Q: Can you compare your data to direct competitors?
A. Yes! One of the reporting options in Payscale allows you to select other organizations by name that you want to use to create your market average. This is a great option to make sure you are looking at averages and being competitive with data from your business rivals.
Q: How can I protect my data if you can select specific organizations’ names for data comparison?
A. Payscale’s report is in line with DOJ antitrust guidelines. When choosing competitor names to create your average, you will have to select a minimum of 5 organizations in order for the report to be run. If you try to run the report multiple times in order to back into a specific organization’s compensation data, your account will be flagged and reporting halted. There is also a dominance diffusion threshold, that if an organization’s data makes up too large of a percentage of the average, the report will require you to add more organizations to reduce that impact.
Q: What do I do if I forgot my login to Payscale?
A. Contact surveys@cascadeemployers.com if you forgot your login for the Payscale site.
Q: My username/password for Payscale is no longer working. What is wrong?
A. Contact surveys@cascadeemployers.com if your Payscale login is no longer working. You may want to check if your membership status with Cascade has lapsed or if your data submitted to Payscale hasn’t been updated in over a year. Our team will be able to help identify what is needed to reinstate your access.
