Fall 2026 Edition
The State of the Customer Success Job Market
What I learned from sharing 3,142 Customer Success roles this year.
By Nicole St. Germain, Customer Success Jobs · Published October 30, 2026 · Next update in early 2027
I'm a former Director of Customer Success and hiring manager. Twice a week I send the Job Drop, a hand-picked list of remote, salary-transparent Customer Success jobs, and this report is built from every role I shared this year. There's plenty of survey data on what people say they earn. This is something different: what companies are actually willing to put in writing when they hire. Here's how I put it together.
Key findings
Every category beat 2025
3,142 roles January through September, up 87%. Volume was higher in every month than last year.
Salaries are up, but flat since June
The median is $120,000, up 6.7% from 2025. CSM pay hasn't moved since my June report.
More than half of job descriptions mention AI
About 55% of Customer Success job descriptions mention AI, but what that means for you depends on your role and level.
Market at a glance
The Customer Success job market at a glance
Overall volume growth
+87%
3,142 roles this year vs. 1,678 last year
Median salary growth
+6.7%
$120,000 this year vs. $112,500 last year
Is the Customer Success job market growing?
Job Drop volume was higher in every month of 2026 than in the same month of 2025. From January through September, I shared 3,142 roles, up 87% from 1,678 last year. June was the peak at 461 roles.
These are the roles that met my criteria, not every Customer Success job posted. I started tracking Operations roles in March 2026.
What kinds of Customer Success roles are companies hiring for?
CSM roles make up more than half of the Job Drop in 2026, with 1,747 jobs (56%). Leadership follows at 16%, then Onboarding at 13%, Break Into Success at 11%, and Operations at 4%.
When are Customer Success jobs posted?
January is the slowest month for Customer Success hiring, not the busiest. In both years, the first three months had the fewest roles per Job Drop. Volume builds through spring and holds through summer; July 2026 was the busiest month of the year at 58 roles per drop. Fall didn't slow down last year either. October and November were the two busiest months of 2025.
By category
Customer Success salaries and hiring trends by role
Each report covers volume, salary by level, and what job descriptions are asking for right now.
Customer Success Managers (CSMs)
SMB & Digital, Mid-Career, Senior, and Strategic CSM roles
Median salary: $120,000
CSM roles beat 2025 every single month this year, up 82%.
Read the full CSM report →
Customer Success Leadership
Manager, Director & Head of Customer Success, and VP roles
Median salary: $167,438
Leadership roles beat 2025 every single month this year, up 95%.
Read the Leadership report →Break Into Success
Associate and Break Into Success roles
Median salary: $75,000
Break Into Success roles beat 2025 every single month this year, up 168%.
Read the Break Into Success report →Onboarding & Implementation
Onboarding & Implementation roles
Median salary: $111,443
Onboarding roles are up 27% from 2025, ahead in 7 of 9 months.
Read the Onboarding report →Customer Success Operations
Customer Success Operations roles
Median salary: $136,250
Operations roles were up 48% from Q2 to Q3.
Read the Operations report →Salary report
Customer Success salaries by role and level, Fall 2026
As of October 2026, the median base salary across all Customer Success roles in the Job Drop is $120,000. Here's the median for every category and level, as posted in job descriptions and not including OTE.
Each number is the median salary midpoint for the curated jobs I shared in the Job Drop from July through September 2026. Category data goes back to January; levels start July 14, 2026. More on how I collect this in the Methodology section.
How are Customer Success salaries changing?
Up 6.7% from 2025, ahead of 3.7% inflation. Every category pays more than last year.
Flat since June. CSM pay hasn't moved since my June report, and the other categories are up 1% to 4%.
Which verticals pay Customer Success Managers the most?
AI & Data, DevTools, and Cybersecurity pay CSMs the most. Most of their CSM roles are Senior and Strategic, which is a big part of why.
Strategic CSM vs. Manager median
$170K vs. $140K
You don't have to manage people to make more money. Strategic CSMs out-earn Managers of Customer Success, and Operations pays about the same as managing a team.
Lowest-quarter Onboarding pay, 2025 to now
$82.5K → $95K
Onboarding pays more as the role got more senior. Entry-level and lower-paying Onboarding roles are disappearing. The roles that are left are looking for expertise and experience.
Trends
What's relevant in Customer Success jobs right now?
Here's what the language in Customer Success job descriptions reveals about how candidates need to be thinking about their search.
Industry experience matters at every level.
About 45% of postings ask for industry or vertical experience, from Break Into Success all the way through Leadership.
Senior roles don't always ask for years as a CSM.
Most CSM postings, even at the Senior level, accept "Customer Success, Account Management, or a similar customer-facing role," and ask for years in SaaS, a segment, or an industry. But the rest of the requirements make it clear when they want someone who has been a CSM before. That's why I sort roles by their requirements, not their title.
A degree is rarely required.
Only about 1 in 10 postings require one outright. Most that mention a degree say it's preferred or accept equivalent experience.
Few job descriptions get into the day-to-day.
Only about 1 in 20 postings say how many accounts you'd manage. Most stay general about what the job looks like day to day, which is why reading between the lines matters.
Based on 302 job descriptions from September 2026, across 267 companies. Percentages are rounded to show patterns, not exact counts.
Trend report
How is AI changing Customer Success roles?
What AI fluency actually means in Customer Success right now.
About 55% of job descriptions mention AI, but what that means for you depends on your role and level.
Read the AI trend report →Customer Success Jobs Insider
Like this data? Become an Insider.
If you like understanding the market like this, and you want really good quality jobs sent to you all the time, now is the time to become an Insider. You'll get every Job Drop, Tuesday and Thursday, plus exclusive Insider content like the company lists below.
For Insiders
Companies by vertical
The best companies hiring right now in Customer Success
An add-on to the report for Insiders: I curated the top 10 companies in every vertical that matters to help you get a jump start on your search. Each one hires often, pays at or above the median, and gives candidates a good experience.
More verticals
HR Tech · EdTech · MarTech · DevTools · Supply Chain · Niche verticals
Methodology
How I put this report together
Who put this together?
I'm Nicole St. Germain, a former Director of Customer Success and hiring manager. I founded Customer Success Jobs to help job seekers find and get high-quality Customer Success roles, and I've been curating the Job Drop since 2024.
Where does this data come from?
Every number in this report comes from the jobs I shared in the Job Drop, my twice-weekly list of Customer Success roles. This report covers 3,142 roles from January 6 to September 29, 2026, compared to the same months of 2025.
Because I hand-pick every role, this is a snapshot of quality Customer Success jobs, not a count of every Customer Success job on the market.
What makes a role "quality"?
Every role in the Job Drop meets the same criteria:
Remote. Every role is fully remote.
Salaried, with a posted range. If a company doesn't publish the salary, the role isn't included.
Primarily US. Roles in my Canada and Global sections aren't counted. A role that's open in the US and globally does count.
How are roles counted?
Each job counts once. If a role appears in both the Tuesday and Thursday Drop in the same week, it's counted once.
Five categories. Customer Success Manager (CSM), Leadership, Break Into Success, Onboarding & Implementation, and Customer Success Operations.
Levels started July 14, 2026. That's when I began sorting CSM, Leadership, and Break Into Success roles by level, so level-by-level data covers July 14 onward. For the company lists, I sorted earlier roles into levels by hand.
Operations started in March 2026. I didn't track Operations in January or February 2026, or for most of 2025, so there's no year-over-year comparison for that category.
2025 uses the same rules. I rebuilt the 2025 data from all 91 Job Drops using the same criteria, so the comparisons are apples to apples.
How are salaries calculated?
Salaries are base salary as posted, not OTE. For each job I take the midpoint of the posted range, then find the median across all jobs. Current salaries cover July through September 2026. I corrected a handful of obvious typos in posted salaries (like $1,332,000 for $133,200) before running the numbers.