Top Customer Success Manager Compensation Trends for 2025

Customer Success Manager (CSM) compensation trends for 2025 reflect a tech industry in transformation, with strategic shifts toward more consultative approaches and specialized enterprise roles. As client retention becomes increasingly critical to SaaS business health, account management in all of its forms has taken on a new level of importance and focus.

Betts has released the latest update to our annual Compensation Guide, which provides comprehensive insights into salary trends for tech sales, marketing and customer success roles. This blog further explores how these developments are specifically shaping average salaries and OTE (on-target earnings) ranges for CSMs in 2025:

The Current State of Customer Success Jobs in 2025

While 2024 saw technology companies struggling to balance available talent with tightening budgets, 2025 is shaping up to be a year of strategic realignment in the industry. Next-generation AI continues to transform product experiences, enterprise and mid-market accounts are providing some measure of revenue stability, and customer success is strategically transforming as a function to better ensure value delivery and retention.

At the same time, internal challenges like pay compression remain significant as companies balance the need to attract new talent with retaining their experienced CS professionals. The result is a more nuanced compensation landscape that rewards specialized expertise and strategic skills while attempting to maintain internal equity.

The artificial intelligence industry is also helping to reinforce a lot of the developing trends we saw emerging in 2023 and 2024. Go-to-market (GTM) jobs in tech are inherently becoming more hybrid positions that balance knowledge on technical and business value for prospects and clients. For customer success, this means both specialization and a more consultative approach are being prioritized, particularly in the enterprise market.

CSM Compensation Data for 2025

Compensation for CSMs saw many interesting and somewhat esoteric shifts as the technology sector continues to realign and accelerate priorities. Overall rates for junior-level candidates saw a dip, though this is mainly due to averages on the coasts shrinking, evening out with the pay bands seen in other time zones. Most importantly, earnings for more senior-level, management and enterprise roles in customer success rose to various degrees, reflecting how experience and specialist knowledge are drawing higher compensation premiums.

Average salary for entry-level CSMs with less than 3 years of experience ranged from $70,000-$100,000, while those with 3-5 years of experience saw a range of $100,000-$150,000 overall. CS team managers saw an average of about $120,000-$170,000.

OTE was inversely divided by experience, with less experienced Customer Success Managers seeing potential rates of 35% to 40% of base salary everywhere outside of tech hub cities, while everyone else averaged between 12% to 25%. 

The table below breaks down the average compensation ranges across different time zones and experience levels:

Top Compensation Trends for Customer Success Managers

Here are some of the top trends we have found impacting compensation for Customer Success Managers in 2025:

Regional CSM Salary Differences

While tech hub cities have long featured higher salaries for CSMs and other GTM jobs, particularly on the East and West Coasts, we are seeing a general evening out of rates or at times even a reversal for some roles. This is particularly notable for entry-level candidates as the sector has steered towards prioritizing those with more experience, especially when complemented by technical product understanding or another specialization.

This has led to dynamic shifts that are part of a larger trend around junior talent recruitment. Hiring managers are increasingly looking outside of traditional tech hubs for entry-level candidates, sourcing in areas where lower costs-of-living allow for more competitive rates. This is also contributing to a dwindling premium for in-office employment, causing compensation for remote Customer Success Managers to catch up as can be seen in the Guide’s data tables.

The Rise of Enterprise Customer Success

The tech sector has been aggressively pursuing enterprise-sized clients since 2024, but we are seeing this trend ramp up in 2025. Customer success roles are evolving to meet this demand, with Enterprise CSMs serving as strategic advisors helping customers integrate complex solutions into their business operations while identifying opportunities for growth. 

When sourcing candidates for this position, our Rule of Thumb is to adjust the going salary rate by an additional 20% to remain competitive and attract unicorn talent. For example, if the target base for an experienced mid-market CSM in San Francisco would typically be $160,000, increase it to at least $192,000 for an Enterprise Customer Success Manager. This falls within the overall average range we have seen for this role, which typically falls between $175,000-$200,000.

To learn more about the specific trends for enterprise customer success and sales talent acquisition, check out our brand new Enterprise Compensation Guide.

CSMs as Consultants

As a result of the increased enterprise and mid-market account targeting in tech, customer success responsibilities are transforming into much more consultative engagements that go beyond reactive support. This includes being able to:

• Provide strategic guidance that aligns product usage with desired business outcomes
• Develop and present ROI analyses that justify ongoing investment
• Identify expansion opportunities based on deep understanding of client operations
• Serve as trusted advisors rather than just technical support resources

Many SaaS companies are actively seeking out CSM candidates that have experience working in strategy consulting organizations such as McKinsey to meet this demand. Of course, this also adds another compensation premium for talent with this background, further increasing rates.

Pay Compression Challenges in Tech

Pay compression, when current employees see their existing salary fall behind the rates of those with less experience, is a growing problem within tech as new hires enter with expectations of the same or a higher level of wages. At Betts, we recommend that companies create a more transparent compensation structure based on role-specific performance metrics, rewarding merit over tenure and better reflecting the value each employee contributes in their position.

For Customer Success Managers specifically, this might mean:

• Developing clear metrics around retention rates, expansion revenue, and customer health scores
• Creating performance tiers with associated compensation bands
• Implementing regular market adjustments for existing team members
• Establishing transparent progression criteria that link compensation increases to skill development

Access Real-Time CSM Compensation Data with Comp Engine

While our Compensation Guide provides valuable strategic-level insights, only Comp Engine will give you the latest data on rates in real-time. By leveraging this tool from Betts, your hiring managers can view changing salaries, bonus rates, equity expectations and more for Customer Success Managers and other GTM roles in tech, arming your team to make fresh competitive offers for your unicorn talent.

Access Comp Engine here to transform how you approach CSM compensation planning in 2025.