Remote Salary Trends: What to Expect This Year

By Nate Fulsom · April 8, 2026

We pulled salary data from 8,200+ job listings posted on RemoteFold over the last six months to see where remote pay is headed. The headline: design roles are up 12% year over year, with Senior Product Designers now commanding $140K-$185K on average. That puts design ahead of marketing (+8%) but behind engineering (+15%) in terms of growth. A few things that stood out: Companies offering 4-day work weeks are paying about the same as 5-day companies. The perk is the perk -- they're not discounting salary for it. "Remote (Worldwide)" listings pay 10-18% less than "Remote (US)" for the same role. That gap is narrowing but it's still real. Startups (under 50 employees) are increasingly competitive on salary. The gap between startup and mid-market pay has shrunk from 22% to about 11% in the last year. Equity is becoming standard even at non-VC-backed companies. 44% of listings in our dataset mentioned some form of equity or profit sharing, up from 31% a year ago. We'll publish the full breakdown by role, experience level, and region in our annual salary guide later this month.