Controller salary by level: what 428 US postings pay

Explore the Controller careers hub and the finance careers guide.

Search "controller salary" and the websites can't agree.

One says about $110,000, another about $160,000, and corporate controller pages go past $190,000.

They're blending four different seats that share one word.

So I split them.

I pointed the tool I use for my own job search at US controller roles. Of 5,446 postings, 447 had a range the employer typed in themselves, and 428 were left once I'd collapsed the copies.

The job itself, day to day, lives in the controller career guide.

How much does a controller make?

A US controller posting from a direct employer typically offered $120,000 to $150,000 a year, with a midpoint of $135,000. An assistant controller ran $110,000 to $137,736, a plant or division controller $120,300 to $151,459, and a corporate controller $167,500 to $202,062.

Each figure is a median of the bottoms, middles and tops employers posted, base pay only.

That's the whole disagreement in one chart.

Blend these four and one number can land anywhere from the low $120,000s to the mid $180,000s.

136 controllers is a real sample. 44 corporate controllers is thinner, so read that row as a sketch.

"Financial controller" is the same seat. Most US postings just say controller.

As a cross-check, the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median financial manager wage at $166,570 for May 2025. That group also covers treasurers and finance directors. It lands between the controller and corporate controller midpoints, where you'd expect.

How the controller data was built

I built the controller data from Adzuna, a big index of US job ads. My tool searched it for every controller title and kept only the ads where the employer put a pay range in writing. If the employer didn't write it, it isn't here.

• Sorted every "controller" title into four levels: assistant or associate; plant, division, regional, site or business unit; corporate, global, group or VP-level; and plain controller.
• Dropped controllers that aren't the accounting seat: project, cost, inventory, production, quality, credit and the like.
• Counted the same employer posting the same range for the same level once. That took 447 down to 428.
• Split staffing agencies from direct employers. One agency alone posted 85 of the 447 ranges.
• Base salary only. Few controller ads state a bonus or equity.

Three limits:

1. It's mostly September. 361 of the 447 ranges were posted in September 2026.
2. States with pay posting laws are overrepresented. California alone is 68 of the 447.
3. A range covers the role, current staff included. You negotiate inside it. Nobody is promised the top.

What does an assistant controller make?

A US assistant controller posting typically ranged from $110,000 to $137,736, with a midpoint of $122,500. It's the widest level on the ladder. 28 of the 84 ranges started below $100,000, and 29 topped out above $150,000. Two offers can sit $50,000 apart and both be normal.

That's the title doing two jobs.

At a big company, it runs the close for a large ledger, with a team.

At a small one, it's the senior accountant who got a better title.

At the bottom, much of the routine work is what I'd call being "a glorified librarian putting receipts in the right folder and typing those in". Software takes that part first.

The top of the range pays for judgment: running the close, owning the reconciliations, standing behind the entries.

So count the duties in the posting that are data entry or filing. If that's most of them, price it like a senior accountant seat.

What automation changes in the close is in the automation answer on controller interview questions.

The middle half of assistant controller midpoints ran from $105,000 to about $152,000.

Plant or division controller vs controller

On posted pay, plant or division controller vs controller is a tie. Plant or division postings had a midpoint of $137,500, across 47 direct employers. Controllers had $135,000, across 136. So the number can't pick between them. The work can.

A plant controller usually runs a site's books inside someone else's close, calendar and system.

A controller at a smaller company often owns the whole close and gets to change it.

That's what I'd check first. "The most exciting work is when I can build a process, test it, and improve it. The least exciting is using somebody else's broken process."

In the interview, ask: "What's one process in the close you'd want changed in my first year, and would I own the change?"

If the answer is "that's decided at corporate", you know which seat it is.

What I'd still want to be doing in ten years is in the bored question on controller interview questions.

What does a corporate controller make?

The typical US corporate controller posting ranged from $167,500 to $202,062, with a midpoint of $185,000. That's about 37 percent above a controller, the biggest step on the ladder. 36 of the 44 corporate controller ranges topped out above $150,000, and only 2 started below $100,000.

The extra money buys more numbers to defend, to more people: the auditors, the CFO, whoever signs the annual report.

Only numbers I can defend go on my salary pages. Where that rule came from is in how the FP&A salary data was built.

One control I used on a joint arrangement is in the internal controls answer.

Before a corporate controller interview, pick one consolidated number you've owned. Practise defending it in two minutes: where it came from, what could make it wrong, and how you'd know.

Controller salary progression

Controller salary progression has one small step and one big one. On direct-employer midpoints, assistant controller to controller is about 10 percent. Controller to corporate controller is about 37 percent. Plant and division controllers sit beside the controller rung, at $137,500.

If you're an assistant controller at a big company with a team, a controller title at a smaller one may not pay you more.

It may pay you in scope.

Finance manager titles with accounting or controller in them post lower again, at a $112,500 midpoint. The title-word split is in finance manager salary.

Above corporate controller is usually a CFO seat. Can a controller become a CFO covers what changes.

Do recruiters post higher controller pay?

Staffing agency recruiters post higher pay for plain controller roles: a midpoint of $145,000, against $135,000 from direct employers. It didn't hold at every level. At plant and corporate level the agency postings came in lower, on small samples (9 and 7 postings).

Two things are probably going on.

Agencies get the searches companies couldn't fill themselves, often in a hurry.

And an agency ad is written to get applications, so it may show the top of the budget.

Ask the recruiter whether the range came from the company, and whether it's base only.

Keep agency or direct on every row of your job application tracker, next to the posted range, and you'll see the pattern in your own search.

Does controller pay change by state?

Controller pay does change by state. California had the highest all-levels midpoint at $164,000, then Texas at $155,000 and New York at $150,000. Pay posting laws explain why California and New York show up so often in the sample, and why Texas looks odd.

Texas is the surprise. It has no pay posting law, so its sample is probably tilted toward big employers that post pay everywhere.

California makes any employer with 15 or more staff put the pay scale in the posting.

New York's pay transparency rule reaches employers with four staff, who must post the lowest and highest pay they'd offer.

In the high-cost states (California, New York, Washington, Massachusetts and New Jersey), a controller posting had a midpoint of $158,750, against $134,130 everywhere else.

For corporate controllers it shrank to $187,500 against $176,250.

At the top, the seat sets the pay more than the city does.

How much should a controller make?

A controller should make what the posted range for their exact seat says, adjusted for three things the range can't see. Start with your row in the chart above. Then check the scope of the seat, the state it's in, and who posted it.

1. Scope. How many entities, how many people, and whether you own the close. Five entities and a team of six is a different seat from one ledger.
2. State. In a high-cost state, the controller midpoint was about $25,000 higher.
3. Who posted it. An agency ad may already show the top of the budget.

How I answer the expectations question, and why I don't name a number first, is in how to use a posted range.

Which controller seat pays for the work you want?

The controller seat that pays for the work you want is the one whose mess you'd enjoy fixing. A posted range tells you what the seat pays now. It can't tell you whether you'd want the work. On this ladder, two seats can pay the same.

For me, the work is simple. "Everything I do is to turn or organize chaos into order so that things can function the way they were actually intended. Or people can function the way they were actually intended."

A controller seat is paid to do that for the numbers.

The higher the seat, the bigger the mess.

So before you compare two offers, write one sentence for each: what mess would I be paid to fix?

If you can't write it, you don't know the seat yet.

The number won't tell you.