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CEOPayWatch

Our Methodology

CEOPayWatch makes the SEC-disclosed total compensation of U.S. public-company CEOs searchable and verifiable. Our rule is strict: we report only what each company itself disclosed in its proxy statement, traceable to a specific filing — and we never estimate.

Data Sources

Our only data source for compensation is SEC DEF 14A Proxy Statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission via EDGAR. These mandatory filings contain the Summary Compensation Table, whose bottom-line “Total” figure is the single number we report as a CEO’s total compensation.

For that headline total we read the machine-readable iXBRL tag ecd:PeoTotalCompAmt directly from each filing. That tag — the proxy’s own disclosed total — is the only compensation figure we treat as authoritative.

Every Number Here Is a Real Disclosed Figure

We are deliberately explicit about what we assert, and we never present an estimate as a disclosed figure:

  • Every company and CEO carries a real SEC-disclosed total. Each company and executive profile is a real, named CEO whose total compensation is the SEC-disclosed headline figure (iXBRL ecd:PeoTotalCompAmt) from a specific DEF 14A. Companies for which we do not have a real disclosed CEO total are not included on the site at all.
  • We do not publish the per-line-item breakdown. The split of total pay into base salary, bonus, stock awards, option awards, non-equity incentive, pension change, and other compensation is disclosed inside each proxy, but we do not reproduce or estimate that split on our pages. Where you see a single “Total,” that is the only compensation number we are asserting. To read the exact mix, open the linked source DEF 14A on EDGAR.
  • We do not estimate anything. There are no estimated totals, no derived pay ratios, no say-on-pay tallies, and no proprietary pay-for-performance grade anywhere on the site. Those metrics would require sourcing disclosures we do not currently ingest reliably for every company, so we omit them rather than fabricate or approximate them.

We supplement the disclosed CEO total with each company’s revenue, market cap, employee count, and sector from the corresponding 10-K, purely for context.

What We Deliberately Do Not Publish

For honesty about the limits of our data, we explicitly do not report the following on any page:

  • CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio. Companies disclose this under SEC Item 402(u), but we do not currently ingest it reliably and will not estimate it. To read a company’s ratio, open its DEF 14A on EDGAR — linked from every company profile.
  • Say-on-pay vote results. Disclosed in each company’s 8-K after the annual meeting; not reproduced here.
  • A proprietary pay-for-performance grade. Earlier versions of this site showed an A–F grade and several derived metrics that were not sourced from real disclosures. They have been removed. Every figure on the site today is a real SEC-disclosed number.

Data Collection Process

We query the SEC EDGAR API for DEF 14A filings and extract the iXBRL-tagged total-compensation figure (ecd:PeoTotalCompAmt) programmatically. We extract the headline “Total” only; we do not extract or republish the individual Summary Compensation Table line items, and we do not estimate them.

Update Frequency

Most proxy statements are filed between February and May each year, ahead of annual shareholder meetings. We update company data within two weeks of each proxy filing. The bulk of updates happen in proxy season (March-May).

Known Limitations

  • We report the proxy’s disclosed total compensation only. The per-line-item breakdown (salary / bonus / stock / options / pension / other) is in the source filing but is not reproduced or estimated on our pages — open the linked DEF 14A for the exact mix.
  • The reported total uses grant-date fair value for equity (the SEC’s required Summary Compensation Table convention), not realized value. Actual payouts may be significantly higher or lower.
  • We cover publicly traded companies that file a DEF 14A with the SEC and for which we have a real disclosed CEO total. Companies without a disclosed total, private companies, partnerships, and foreign private issuers are not included.
  • CEO pay should be read with peer-group context. Compensation committees explicitly select peer groups when setting pay; the disclosed peer group is in the full proxy, not the headline number.

How to Cite This Data

If you use data from CEOPayWatch, please cite:

CEOPayWatch. "[Company Name] Executive Compensation Data." ceopaywatch.com, 2026. Accessed [date].

Underlying data is sourced from SEC EDGAR proxy filings (DEF 14A) and is in the public domain.