Remote VP Sales Salary vs. On-Site: What the Data Shows

The remote VP Sales salary question comes up in nearly every compensation conversation we track. Candidates assume remote roles pay less. Hiring managers assume they can discount for flexibility. Both assumptions are wrong, or at best, outdated. Across 704 executive sales postings with disclosed salary data in The CRO Report's dataset, remote roles average $175,886 to $259,173 in base comp. On-site roles average $169,077 to $250,238. Remote pays more at both ends of the range.

That's 311 remote roles and 393 on-site roles with real salary numbers attached. Not survey data. Not self-reported figures. Disclosed compensation from actual job postings collected across 1,349 executive sales positions.

Here's the full breakdown by location, company stage, and what "remote" actually means when a company puts it in a VP Sales posting.

The Remote Discount Myth

There's a persistent belief that remote roles carry a compensation penalty. The logic goes: if you're not commuting, not relocating, and not sitting in a high-cost metro, companies will pay you less. At the individual contributor and mid-management level, there's some data to support this. At the VP Sales level, the data says the opposite.

According to The CRO Report's analysis, remote VP Sales roles offer base salaries averaging $195K-$285K — competitive with most metros but 10-20% below San Francisco and New York rates.

Metric	Remote	On-Site	Difference
Roles with Salary	311	393	--
Avg Min Base	$175,886	$169,077	+$6,809
Avg Max Base	$259,173	$250,238	+$8,935

Remote roles pay a $6,809 premium on the low end and an $8,935 premium on the high end. These aren't dramatic numbers. They won't change anyone's life. But they definitively kill the idea that going remote means taking a pay cut at this level.

Why? Because VP Sales compensation is driven by the value of the role, not the location of the person filling it. A VP Sales building a $20M pipeline in enterprise SaaS generates the same revenue whether they're in San Francisco or Savannah. Companies competing for senior sales talent can't afford to lowball remote candidates when 44.2% of the market is already remote. Discount the comp, and the candidate takes one of the other 310 remote roles paying market rate.

The premium also reflects a selection effect. Companies that hire remote VP Sales leaders tend to be later-stage, well-funded, and competing nationally for talent. They're posting remote because they want the best candidate regardless of geography, and they're pricing accordingly.

Where the Money Actually Is: Salary by Metro

The remote vs. on-site comparison tells one story. The metro-level data tells a more nuanced one. Where a role is based, whether remote or on-site, still correlates with how much it pays.

Metro / Location	Roles w/ Salary	Avg Min Base	Avg Max Base
San Francisco	18	$244,452	$347,218
Seattle	8	$200,909	$296,696
Boston	26	$201,227	$282,527
Atlanta	15	$193,255	$275,822
Denver	9	$192,784	$254,067
Texas	33	$157,863	$260,065
New York	58	$180,780	$250,499
Los Angeles	13	$169,762	$236,238
Chicago	20	$151,832	$222,485
Remote-tagged	73	$151,533	$217,341

San Francisco leads by a wide margin. An average max base of $347,218 across 18 roles puts it nearly $100K above the remote-tagged average. Seattle at $296,696 and Boston at $282,527 round out the top three. None of this is surprising. These metros have the highest concentration of well-funded enterprise software companies, and they pay accordingly.

New York is interesting for the volume. Fifty-eight roles with salary data, the largest sample of any metro, with an average max base of $250,499. That's solidly mid-range. NYC has a massive tech presence, but the VP Sales hiring there spans a wider range of company sizes and stages than San Francisco, which pulls the average down relative to the Bay Area's concentration of later-stage, high-paying companies.

The bottom of the table reveals something counterintuitive. "Remote-tagged" roles, the 73 postings that list "Remote" as their primary location without tying to a specific metro, average just $151,533 to $217,341. That's the lowest range on the table. Lower than Chicago. Lower than Texas.

This doesn't contradict the earlier finding that remote pays more than on-site overall. It adds context. Remote roles tied to expensive metros (a company headquartered in SF that hires a remote VP Sales and pegs comp to Bay Area bands) pay at or near SF rates. Remote roles with no geographic anchor tend to pay at national-average or below-average rates. The "remote" label alone tells you less about comp than the company's headquarters and comp philosophy.

Atlanta at $275,822 avg max and Denver at $254,067 avg max both outperform their cost-of-living reputation. Both cities have growing tech ecosystems and companies willing to pay competitively to attract senior sales talent. Texas at 33 roles shows the widest spread, $157,863 to $260,065, reflecting the diversity of the state's tech market from Austin startups to Dallas enterprise companies.

Company Stage Changes the Equation More Than Location

If you want to predict a VP Sales comp package, the company's funding stage is a better indicator than geography. The data here is stark.

Company Stage	Roles w/ Salary	Avg Min Base	Avg Max Base
Late Stage	27	$224,635	$318,772
Series C/D	79	$222,046	$314,444
Enterprise/Public	195	$171,438	$264,592
Seed/Series A	14	$192,955	$257,169
Series B/C	30	$164,710	$226,373
Series A/B	38	$147,289	$183,553

Series C/D companies pay $222,046 to $314,444. Late Stage pays $224,635 to $318,772. These two cohorts sit in a different compensation tier than the rest of the market, and the gap is larger than any geographic premium. A remote VP Sales at a Series C company in Atlanta will almost certainly out-earn an on-site VP Sales at a Series A/B company in San Francisco.

Series A/B is the low end at $147,289 to $183,553 across 38 roles. These companies are earlier in their growth, typically pre-scale, and compensating with equity rather than base salary. The $183K max average isn't low in absolute terms, but it's $131K below the Late Stage max average. That's the real compensation lever.

Seed/Series A at $192,955 to $257,169 across 14 roles looks higher than Series A/B, which seems counterintuitive. The likely explanation: the Seed/Series A companies posting VP Sales roles with disclosed salary in the $190K+ range tend to be well-capitalized companies with strong funding that are hiring their first sales leader. They're paying a premium to attract someone willing to build from zero. The sample size is small (14 roles), so a few high-paying outliers shift the average noticeably.

Enterprise/Public companies land in the middle at $171,438 to $264,592 across 195 roles, the largest cohort. Public companies have structured compensation bands, which compresses both the floor and the ceiling compared to growth-stage companies that can flex comp to win specific candidates.

The takeaway here is straightforward. If maximizing base salary is a priority, company stage matters more than whether the role is remote or on-site, and more than which metro it's in. A Late Stage or Series C/D company hiring remote will likely pay $220K+ at the floor. A Series A/B company in a top metro will likely pay under $185K.

What "Remote" Actually Means in a VP Sales Posting

Remote doesn't always mean what you think it means. At the VP Sales level, "remote" comes with asterisks.

The most common caveat is travel. Out of 1,298 job postings in our dataset with travel data, 45 explicitly state 50% or more travel. That's a small slice of the total, but it's concentrated in senior sales roles where "remote" often means "you don't report to an office, but you're on the road half the time." For a VP Sales, travel means customer meetings, board presentations, team offsites, QBRs in regional offices, and SKOs. The role is remote in that you work from your home when you're not traveling. How often you're actually home depends on the company.

Then there's hybrid-remote, the category that doesn't always show up cleanly in job posting data. Some companies post as "remote" but expect the VP Sales to be in-office two to three days per week or live within commuting distance of headquarters. Others post as "remote" and genuinely mean it, with no geographic requirements beyond time zone overlap. The posting itself doesn't always make the distinction clear.

Three patterns emerge in how companies use the remote label for VP Sales roles:

• Truly distributed: No office requirement, no geographic constraint, travel as needed for customer and team events. Most common at companies that were remote-first before hiring their VP Sales.
• Remote with a home base: The role is listed as remote, but the company has a headquarters in SF, NYC, or another metro and expects the VP Sales to be there regularly. Comp often reflects the headquarters location, not the VP's home address.
• Remote as a recruiting advantage: The company would prefer on-site but posts as remote to access a wider candidate pool. These roles tend to drift toward hybrid once the person starts. If the job description mentions "ability to be in [city] as needed" or "proximity to our headquarters preferred," this is the pattern.

The comp difference between these three patterns is real. The "remote with a home base" version, anchored to a high-cost metro, pays like that metro. The "truly distributed" version, with no geographic anchor, tends to pay closer to the $151,533 to $217,341 range we see for remote-tagged roles. Asking which pattern the company follows is worth doing before you get deep into the process.

What This Means for Your Next Move

The data points to different strategies depending on where you sit.

If you're evaluating a remote role against an on-site offer

Don't accept a discount. The market data shows remote VP Sales roles pay a slight premium, not a penalty. If a company positions remote flexibility as a comp offset, that's a signal about their compensation philosophy, not a reflection of market rates. There are 311 remote roles in this dataset paying $175,886 to $259,173 on average. Use that as your benchmark.

If you're in a high-cost metro and considering a remote role

Find out whether the company pegs remote comp to a specific location band. A remote role at a company headquartered in San Francisco may pay near SF rates ($244K to $347K range). A remote role at a company with no geographic anchor may pay $151K to $217K. Same title, same responsibilities, $100K+ gap in base. The company's comp philosophy is the variable, not the remote tag.

If you're optimizing for total comp

Company stage is the biggest lever. Late Stage and Series C/D companies pay $222K to $318K at the max end, regardless of location. Series A/B companies pay $147K to $183K. The difference between those two cohorts, roughly $130K in max base, dwarfs any geographic or remote/on-site premium. If base salary is the priority, target the company stage that pays what you need.

If you're weighing flexibility against comp ceiling

The data doesn't force a trade-off at this level. The highest-paying company stages (Series C/D and Late Stage) also tend to be the most open to remote. The friction point is travel, not location. Expect 25-50% travel in many remote VP Sales roles, and factor that into your definition of flexibility.