If knowledge is power, then prepare to get very, very strong — at least when it comes to negotiating your salary. Thanks to new app WageSpot, you can compare your income to that of those around you, and this sort of radical transparency may be instrumental in allowing workers across America to address the enduring (and perhaps ever-growing) wage gap.
The self proclaimed “world’s first user-driven and location-based salary app” looks to bypass current tools on the market, like Glassdoor and Payscales, that “don’t provide real unfiltered data directly from the user.” With WageSpot, however, you’ll be able to see and share your salary information directly with other users, perhaps providing greater clarity about what you should (or at least could) be making.
Co-founders Raphael Morozov, Marat Galperin, and Anatoly Vaisman call their product the “Zillow for salary data,” and as they attract more and more users (they launched at the beginning of the week), the hope is that user-generated content will be filterable by job title, salary, location, gender, job satisfaction, experience, and a number of other determinant factors.
“What appealed most to us about the idea [of WageSpot] was that it was both controversial and compelling. The last American taboo on keeping salary information secret has really helped employers keep salaries down,” Galperin told Fortune via email. “We strongly believe that bringing transparency into the world of compensation can help turn the tables on employers by empowering employees with useful information. We envision WageSpot becoming a ubiquitous part of any salary discussion and a powerful tool helping level the playing field for all employees.”
With analytics that allow you to compare your own salary to those in similar industries or professions in surrounding areas, WageSpot hopes to provide professionals throughout the U.S. with detailed and comparative information on how their income stacks up against others.
In order to keep the app free, WageSpot recently launched a Kickstarter campaign with the hopes of raising $10,000 over the next 43 days. According to their campaign page, the funding is needed not only to maintain accessibility, but “to pay for Google’s annual licensing fees for their Mapping API,” which is key to the app’s functionality. “We are on a mission to empower employees by breaking down the salary sharing taboo,” the WageSpot team says. “We hope you will join us.”
