Total compensation
Also called total comp, SCT total, reported total.
The headline pay figure CompensationBase ranks and displays: the Summary Compensation Table Total column as filed, not a recomputed sum of the component bars.
What it is
Total compensation, on CompensationBase and in most media rankings of public-company pay, is the Summary Compensation Table Total column for a named executive officer’s fiscal year. It is the filing’s own headline: salary, bonus, stock awards, option awards, non-equity incentive plan compensation, the pension and deferred-compensation column, and all other compensation, as the company added them.
It is not a recalculation of only the bars a website chooses to draw. If a column is hard to parse or is omitted from a breakdown, the Total can still include it. It is also not realized pay, not Form 4 proceeds, and not “compensation actually paid” from the Pay Versus Performance table.
Why companies use it
Issuers report a Total because Item 402 requires it. The column is meant to give investors one number that captures the year’s reported package, including equity at grant-date fair value.
Internally, committees still talk about target total direct compensation (salary plus target bonus plus the intended value of long-term awards). The SCT Total is the disclosed outcome of those decisions after actual bonus payouts and grant-date accounting values are filled in.
Pros
- One figure lets readers rank and compare officers and companies without reconstructing every footnote.
- Because it is taken from the filing, two sites that both use SCT Total should start from the same numerator.
- It includes equity decisions made that year, which is what many investors want to judge.
Cons
- A single number hides mix: two $20 million totals can be almost all salary-like cash or almost all multi-year stock.
- Grant-date equity can dwarf cash and then never be realized, so the total is a poor proxy for spending power.
- Pension valuation changes and one-time items can move the total without any new board grant.
Examples
Headline vs components
If stock awards, salary, and bonus are shown on a profile but change in pension value is not drawn as a bar, the SCT Total can still be millions higher than the visible pieces. The Total as filed is still the ranking number.
Same total, different jobs
A CEO with $2 million cash and $18 million of RSUs and a partner whose SCT is mostly carried interest in All Other Compensation can share a similar total and almost no common pay design.
On CompensationBase
Rankings, compare views, and profile headlines use this SCT Total. Component bars can miss amounts that still sit in the total, such as change in pension value.
Related terms
- SCT Total as filed
CompensationBase’s headline number: the Total column from the Summary Compensation Table, including amounts (such as change in pension value) that may not appear in the component bars.
- Grant-date fair value
The accounting value of equity awards on the day they are granted, which is what the Summary Compensation Table reports for stock and option awards—not the value later realized when shares vest or are sold.
- Compensation actually paid
A Pay Versus Performance figure that adjusts SCT amounts for equity fair-value changes and pension. It is not the SCT Total CompensationBase ranks.