Compensation Decision Infrastructure · Private Beta

Every pay decision deserves the same
rigorous compensation analysis.

Stratum builds the compensation analysis behind every offer, promotion, adjustment, and exception — so every decision is evaluated consistently against your company's philosophy, structure, and history. No more starting from scratch every time someone asks for a pay decision.

Analyzing
Internal equity — 7 peers · same level · same geo
Compression risk vs. 3 direct reports
Philosophy alignment — P60 target vs. P74 offer
Prior exception found — March 2025 · approved VP People
Budget impact — $14K increase vs. current band
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You don't lose control of compensation all at once. You lose it one decision at a time. A compensation philosophy doesn't create consistency. The decisions that follow it do.

Sound familiar?

A manager requests an exception. It gets approved. The reasoning seems obvious at the time — nobody writes it down.

Six months later, someone asks for the same thing. Nobody remembers why the first one was different. A new exception gets approved — or denied — without knowing what precedent either decision creates.

A year later, someone asks why compensation looks the way it does. The decisions exist. The reasoning doesn't.

This isn't a process failure. It's what happens when every compensation decision is treated as if it exists in isolation.

You have market data. Salary ranges. A compensation philosophy.
Most companies do.

So why does every difficult decision still require rebuilding the analysis?
Why do similar situations get different answers?
Why does every new compensation leader inherit years of undocumented decisions?

Every compensation decision becomes tomorrow's precedent.
Whether you intended it to or not.

A compensation philosophy doesn't create consistency. The decisions that follow it do.

Decisions live in spreadsheets, emails, and individual memory. Each one feels right in isolation. Together, they accumulate into something nobody intended — until a pay equity review, a leadership change, or a single hard question exposes the gap.

The problem isn't one bad decision. It's hundreds of reasonable decisions made without the context of the last one.

A strong candidate gets an offer above your salary band
Approved via email. No record of why. No flags raised.
Six months later, their manager gets promoted — to $8K more
Now a manager earns barely more than their direct report. Compression. Nobody noticed.
A peer finds out and asks why they're paid less for the same role
HR has no documented answer. The original exception set an undocumented precedent.
The consequence
The CFO asks how this happened.
Nobody can explain why the original exception was approved, what precedent it created, or how the company got here. The decisions exist. The reasoning doesn't.
What Stratum does

Build your compensation foundation.
Analyze every pay decision.
Never lose the reasoning again.

Whether you have a dedicated compensation team or you're the HR leader wearing five hats, Stratum helps you build a compensation foundation and perform the analysis behind every pay decision.

Build Your Foundation

Build your compensation foundation once. Every future decision uses it automatically.

Build your compensation philosophy, job architecture, salary ranges, and governance framework — even if you're starting from scratch. Build your foundation directly in Stratum, or bring in what your compensation consultant has already designed. Either way, every pay decision runs through it from day one.

Pay Philosophy
Your position in market, talent targets, and structural stance — written and versioned.
Job Architecture
Families, tracks, levels, and definitions mapped to your actual org.
Salary Ranges
Min, midpoint, max for every role. Three scenarios. Full audit trail.
Governance Snapshot
Versioned record of every decision made — locked, exportable, updatable each cycle.
Analyze Every Decision

Perform the analysis behind every compensation decision.

Stop rebuilding the same analysis every time someone asks for a pay decision.

Before an offer, promotion, adjustment, or exception is approved, Stratum evaluates internal equity, compression risk, salary range placement, philosophy alignment, historical precedent, approval requirements, and budget impact — so every decision starts with the same rigorous analysis.

🎯
New hire offers
Range check, internal equity, philosophy alignment — before the number goes out.
📈
Promotions
Routed through your leveling framework. Consistent across managers and departments.
🔄
Market adjustments & merit increases
Modeled against your ranges. Cost-to-correct surfaced before decisions are made.
⚖️
Exceptions
Overrides allowed — but every one requires documented justification, an approver, and a logged precedent.
Preserve Every Decision

Preserve every decision so every future decision starts with more context than the last one.

When a decision falls outside your framework, Stratum doesn't block it. It documents it — who approved it, why, and what precedent it creates. Every override becomes knowledge your organization carries forward.

AI performs the analysis and surfaces recommendations. Humans make every decision.

Example · Promotion request
Internal equity check — no compression created
Salary range check — new level midpoint: $142K
Budget impact — $18K increase vs. current $124K
3 similar promotions found — consistent with precedent
No policy conflicts — within standard cycle
Manager overrides budget flag →
"Retention risk — employee has competing offer. Approving above standard increase. Precedent: one-time retention adjustment, not a band change."
🔒 Governance record updated · decision logged · precedent noted
HRIS
Stores employee records
Records salary history
Tracks approvals
Stores transactions
Stratum
Guides compensation decisions
Evaluates new decisions
Captures reasoning
Learns from every exception

Most software stores compensation data. Stratum stores compensation intelligence.

Most software stores compensation data.
Stratum stores compensation intelligence.

Without Stratum
"I think we did something like this before for someone in engineering... or maybe product? You might want to check with Sarah but I think she left."
With Stratum
"Exception approved 2026-03-14. Candidate held competing offer above P75. Approved by VP People. Logged as one-time market adjustment — not a band change. Precedent: applicable to IC5+ in competitive markets only."
See it in action

See how Stratum guides compensation decisions.

Observe

Upload your roster. See the truth immediately.

Stratum surfaces compression risks, data gaps, and structural issues before any decisions are made.

Phase 0 of 10 Data Reality Check · ~2 min
acme_hris_export_2026-Q1.csv
124 employees · uploaded 2 minutes ago · validation passed
Data Diagnostic Summary
Overall confidence: HIGH · 87%
124
Total employees
47
Unique titles
8
Flagged hourly
● Manager links 124/124 · High
● Location (US state) 124/124 · High
● Job descriptions Partial · system suggests 26 summaries
Phase 4 of 10 Contradiction Detection · runs automatically · 3 conflicts surfaced
We found 3 conflicts to resolve before math.
HIGH SEVERITY
The Google Trap
Conflict · comparator set vs. cash strategy
You said you compete with Google / FAANG but have 100 employees. At your stage, matching FAANG base would consume your entire engineering payroll budget for a few roles.
System recommendation: Anchor engineering ranges to mid-market SaaS benchmarks, not FAANG. You can revisit at 300+ employees.
Rationale for this resolution *required
Board has asked us to avoid competing on cash against FAANG — our differentiation is equity upside and mission. This aligns with our Series A funding constraints.
This rationale will be logged in your governance record and shown during audits or leadership transitions.
⚠ HIGH · Budget vs Percentile
P60 target may drift below at 3–5% budget growth
⚠ MED · Perf Pay w/o Review
Review process not yet documented
Guide

Contradictions flagged before they become expensive.

When decisions conflict, Stratum surfaces the tension — with context and a required rationale before anything locks.

Govern

Every override requires documented justification.

Who approved it. Why. What precedent it creates. That record doesn't disappear.

Governance Snapshot · Decision log · version 1
Override · Logged 2026-03-14 · 2:47 PM
New hire offer — Senior Engineer · above P75
Approved by: VP People
"Candidate held a competing offer at $192K — above our P75 of $178K. Approving as one-time market adjustment. Not a band change. Precedent: applicable to IC5+ in competitive markets with documented competing offer only."
Accepted · System recommendation 2026-03-14 · 2:31 PM
Engineering comparator set · anchored to mid-market SaaS
Approved by: CEO · accepted system recommendation
3 contradictions · 3 resolved · 1 override logged
snapshot v1.0 · 2026-03-14

Private beta by invitation. Limited spots.

Stratum is ready when the product is ready — not on a calendar. We're building with a small number of companies now and opening beta as soon as it's right.

Beta companies get the full product, founder pricing, and a direct line to the team. You're not a test subject — you're the first companies to run real compensation decisions through Stratum.

Early access
Beta companies are first in. Limited spots. No procurement committee, no long sales process.
Real product, real decisions
Run your actual offers, promotions, and pay decisions through Stratum. Not a demo environment — the real thing.
Shape what comes next
Your feedback drives the roadmap. Beta companies have a direct line to the team and influence over what gets built.
Where this is going

Today, companies have systems to record compensation.

Tomorrow, they'll have systems that help them make compensation decisions.

That's the future we're building.

Your HRIS remembers what happened.
Stratum remembers why.

Private beta opens by invitation. Spots are limited. Enter your email and we'll be in touch.

No credit card required.