Testing Gravity Payments’ 2.8-to-1 CEO Pay Ratio

By a compensation analyst covering executive pay and financial technology
Last reviewed: July 10, 2026

Gravity Payments says its chief executive earns 2.8 times the compensation of its median employee, down from 22 times in 2015. The reported gap is tiny beside two large payment processors: Fiserv disclosed a 798-to-1 ratio for 2025, while Global Payments reported 333 to 1.

The contrast is real on paper. It is not a clean ranking.

Gravity is a private employer that has not published the CEO and median-worker dollar amounts, employee-selection method, or compensation categories behind its ratio. Fiserv and Global Payments calculate theirs under Securities and Exchange Commission rules that count salary, bonuses, equity awards and certain benefits. Those differences make Gravity’s 2.8 figure notable but impossible to reproduce from public records.

What Gravity Payments actually reports

Gravity’s named 2025 retrospective, 10 Years Later: How a $70k Minimum Wage Changed Gravity Payments, says its CEO-to-median-employee pay ratio fell from 22 to 1 in 2015 to 2.8 to 1. The document also says former CEO Dan Price reduced his $1.1 million salary to $70,000 when the company announced its original wage policy.

Price transferred the CEO position to longtime operating executive Tammi Kroll in 2022. Gravity’s current careers page continued to identify Kroll as CEO in July 2026, and the company’s executive profile says she previously held operations and technology leadership roles at Fiserv, Yahoo and Gravity.

The current companywide salary floor is $80,000, following an increase in March 2022. Gravity also reported a profit-sharing payment exceeding $8,000 per employee for 2024, but that distribution depended on annual profit growth rather than forming part of guaranteed base salary.

Those facts establish a high worker floor and an unusually narrow claimed executive gap. They do not reveal the present CEO’s salary.

Gravity does not say whether its 2.8 ratio compares base salaries, cash compensation, taxable income or total compensation including retirement contributions, insurance and profit sharing. It also does not disclose the median employee’s dollar amount.

Gravity versus three public payment companies

The most recent public-company filings show how dramatically payment-sector ratios can vary.

Sources: Gravity Payments’ 2025 retrospective; Fiserv’s 2026 Proxy Statement; Global Payments’ 2026 Proxy Statement; Block’s 2026 Proxy Statement.

Fiserv’s ratio was the largest of the group. Its filing reported $88,295 in annual total compensation for the median employee and $70,447,958 for CEO Mike Lyons, producing a ratio of 798 to 1. Fiserv said the figure was elevated by sign-on compensation connected with its CEO transition.

Removing a $11,665,109 sign-on cash award and $38,271,616 in sign-on equity awards would reduce Fiserv’s supplemental ratio to 232 to 1. The official SEC calculation remained 798 to 1.

Global Payments reported $61,011 in annual total compensation for its median employee, including $16,269 in employer-provided health and welfare benefits. CEO Cameron Bready’s compensation used for the calculation was $20,338,768, producing the 333-to-1 result.

Block sits at the opposite extreme. Jack Dorsey received reported annual compensation of $2.75, while Block calculated median employee compensation at $222,772. Its stated CEO ratio was less than 0.00001 times median-worker compensation.

Block’s number does not mean its chief executive has less economic power or wealth than an ordinary employee. It measures annual company-paid compensation under a prescribed disclosure method, not personal share ownership or net worth.

The ratios use different measuring systems

SEC rules require covered public companies to disclose the relationship between principal-executive compensation and median-employee compensation. The SEC also gives companies substantial flexibility in selecting the employee population, sampling workers and identifying the median employee.

Fiserv began with approximately 38,700 worldwide employees as of November 30, 2025. After permitted country exclusions, about 37,000 workers remained in its calculation. It considered base cash pay, target incentives, commissions, overtime and shift differentials when identifying its median employee.

Global Payments reported approximately 25,916 employees as of November 1, 2025 and excluded 1,205 workers under the SEC’s permitted de minimis approach. Its selected median employee was a full-time hourly worker located in the United States.

Block started with 10,197 employees, excluded approximately 346 workers in smaller international locations and identified its median using salary, bonuses, commissions, taxable benefits, retirement matching and certain equity awards.

Gravity has published none of those methodological details.

The company may use a simpler salary comparison across slightly more than 200 full-time employees. It may include bonuses or benefits. Public evidence does not resolve the question.

What BLS executive-pay data shows

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a $206,420 national median annual wage for chief executives in May 2024. General and operations managers earned a $102,950 median, while the median across all U.S. occupations was $49,500.

Comparing the BLS chief-executive median with Gravity’s $80,000 salary floor produces a ratio of approximately 2.58 to 1. That calculation is remarkably close to Gravity’s claimed 2.8-to-1 company ratio.

It is not independent confirmation.

The BLS figure is an occupational median drawn from employers across the country. Gravity’s ratio concerns one executive and its own median employee. BLS wage estimates also do not function like SEC proxy compensation tables, which can include large stock awards and other amounts beyond regular wages.

The comparison does provide context. A CEO earning the BLS national median would make $126,420 more than an employee at Gravity’s minimum, while the same executive would earn 4.17 times the BLS all-occupation median of $49,500.

Gravity’s pay structure raises the worker side of the equation. That alone pushes the ratio down, even without reducing executive compensation to an unusually low level.

What 2.8 times the median could mean in dollars

Gravity does not publish its median salary, so the CEO’s pay cannot be reverse-engineered with confidence.

A limited arithmetic illustration is possible. If the median employee earned exactly the $80,000 salary floor and Gravity used base salary for both sides, a ratio of 2.8 to 1 would imply CEO pay of $224,000. If the median were $90,000, the corresponding CEO figure would be $252,000.

Neither is a reported Gravity salary.

The company’s median should not fall below its $80,000 floor if every employee included in the calculation is covered by that policy and the measure is base salary. Profit sharing, health benefits, retirement contributions, part-year employment and other compensation categories could change the result.

The $224,000 illustration also sits close to the BLS chief-executive median of $206,420. Yet BLS reported that the highest-paid 10% of chief executives earned more than $239,200 in regular wage data, placing a hypothetical $224,000 figure between the national median and that upper threshold.

This is analysis, not disclosure. The actual figure remains unknown.

Where the 2.8-to-1 headline misleads

Gravity’s ratio sounds more precise than its public documentation supports.

The company supplies both endpoints for its 2015 comparison indirectly: a $1.1 million former CEO salary and a stated 22-to-1 ratio. Those figures imply median pay of $50,000 at that time, assuming the ratio used the same $1.1 million base salary. Gravity does not explicitly publish that calculation or its 2015 methodology.

The 2025 endpoint is less transparent. Neither CEO pay nor median compensation appears beside the 2.8 figure.

A ratio may also fall for more than one reason. Gravity raised its salary minimum first to $70,000 and later to $80,000, increasing the denominator. Executive pay could have fallen, remained stable or risen more slowly than median compensation. The disclosed ratio alone cannot separate those effects.

Another complication is profit sharing. Gravity says employees received more than $8,000 each for 2024, with longer-serving employees receiving larger amounts. Including that payment would raise median total compensation and reduce the ratio, while excluding it would produce a different result.

The headline is directionally meaningful. It is not an audited compensation table.

Fiserv shows how one award can reshape the result

Fiserv’s 798-to-1 ratio is partly a transition-year artifact.

CEO compensation used in its official calculation reached $70,447,958, while the median employee received $88,295. The company explicitly said its ratio would fall to 232 to 1 after excluding specified sign-on cash and equity awards.

That change equals 566 ratio points without altering the median worker’s compensation.

Fiserv also included employees from a global workforce of approximately 38,700. Pay levels across countries, job types and employment arrangements affect where the median sits. The company made no cost-of-living adjustment in identifying the worker.

Gravity operates at a fraction of that scale and reports a companywide salary floor. A small, primarily U.S.-based private employer with compressed pay bands will usually produce a different median from a multinational corporation employing tens of thousands of workers.

Comparing 2.8 with 798 creates drama. Comparing the underlying systems explains it.

Block proves that a tiny ratio can also mislead

Block’s CEO ratio is mathematically lower than Gravity’s because Dorsey received $2.75 in reported annual compensation. The company’s median employee received $222,772 in total compensation for 2025.

That result would appear to make Block radically more equal than Gravity if the ratio were read without context.

The conclusion would be weak. Dorsey’s economic relationship with Block cannot be summarized by a $2.75 annual paycheck, just as employee compensation cannot be understood solely from base salary. The ratio excludes the separate value of existing ownership interests.

Block’s disclosure is compliant and numerically accurate under its method. Its practical meaning is narrow.

Gravity’s figure carries a related warning. A low annual-pay ratio says something about compensation flows during a period. It does not measure ownership, voting power, accumulated wealth or decision-making authority.

What workers can reasonably conclude

Gravity’s current evidence supports three findings.

First, the company has maintained an $80,000 salary floor and says its median compensation rose substantially after 2015. Second, a reported 2.8-to-1 executive ratio would be exceptionally low beside Fiserv and Global Payments. Third, Gravity does not disclose enough information to verify that ratio under an SEC-style calculation.

The company’s private status explains part of the gap. Gravity is not required to publish the executive-compensation tables, equity valuations, median-worker methodology and employee-population adjustments found in a public-company proxy.

Its ratio remains a company claim.

FAQ

What is Gravity Payments’ CEO pay ratio?

Gravity reports that its CEO earns 2.8 times the compensation of its median employee, down from a 22-to-1 ratio in 2015. It does not publish the current CEO or median-employee dollar amounts.

Who is the CEO of Gravity Payments?

Tammi Kroll became CEO in 2022 after serving in operating and technology leadership positions at Gravity. The company’s careers page continued to identify her as CEO in July 2026.

How much does Gravity Payments’ CEO earn?

No verified current dollar figure was found in the reviewed public sources. The 2.8 ratio is disclosed without the compensation amounts or calculation method needed to derive CEO pay.

How does Gravity’s ratio compare with Fiserv?

Fiserv reported a 798-to-1 ratio for 2025, based on CEO compensation of $70,447,958 and median employee compensation of $88,295. Excluding specified sign-on awards would reduce its supplemental ratio to 232 to 1.

What is Global Payments’ CEO pay ratio?

Global Payments reported a 333-to-1 ratio for 2025. Its median employee received $61,011 in total compensation, while CEO compensation used for the ratio was $20,338,768.

Why is Block’s CEO ratio almost zero?

Block reported $2.75 in annual compensation for Jack Dorsey and $222,772 for its median employee. The resulting ratio was below 0.00001 to 1, but it does not include the economic value of Dorsey’s existing ownership.

Can CEO pay ratios be compared directly?

Only with caution. SEC guidance permits reasonable estimates, statistical sampling and different methods for identifying the median employee. Workforce geography, equity awards and benefit calculations can sharply change the result.

Gravity’s 2.8-to-1 ratio is credible as evidence of a compressed internal pay structure, especially alongside its $80,000 floor. Its exact size remains unverified because the company publishes the ratio without the two dollar figures or methodology required to reproduce it.