GrantTree CEO Bob Leung explains what we learned from our radical self-set pay model and why we moved to a more traditional system.
Recently, a journalist reached out to interview us about self-set pay. They were curious about how GrantTree, a company known for adopting this radical idea some years back, had implemented it and what lessons we’d learned along the way.
The journalist likely wanted to explore how such a system works in practice—perhaps even how it might relate to broader trends like AI-driven workplace changes or the concept of Universal Basic Income.
While I wasn’t part of the team when self-set pay was introduced, I’ve learned a great deal from our founders, Daniel and Paulina, and the courageous team who tested and refined the idea. This is my attempt to do justice to their groundbreaking experiment.
What is self-set pay?
As the name suggests, self-set pay allows employees to set their own salaries. After all, you know your work better than anyone, so who could be better placed to judge it? If you feel you’re not paid the right amount, you might well be right!
It sounds radical, and it is. But why implement such a system?
The answer lies in addressing a key issue in most workplaces: pay dissatisfaction. Feeling undervalued is one of the main reasons people leave their jobs. GrantTree wanted to eliminate this problem, ensuring people left only for reasons other than pay, like career growth or personal aspirations—not because they felt unappreciated.
As a bonus, self-set pay also helped GrantTree address one of the big salary issues of our time: pay inequality, particularly the inequity driven by gender and other biases.
Does it work?
The answer is: yes and no.
The “Yes” perspective
At first glance, self-set pay seems like an obvious recipe for disaster. Won’t people just overpay themselves and bankrupt the company? Surprisingly, no.
Here’s why: in many ways, self-set pay mirrors what business owners already do. Owners have the freedom to set their own salaries, but they also have a vested interest in the company’s success. They balance their personal earnings against the long-term health of the business. They’re also well-informed—they know how the company is performing financially and how their pay compares to others.
GrantTree extended this principle to everyone. By giving the entire team access to financial data and fostering a culture of accountability, employees were empowered to make balanced, informed decisions about their own pay.
And it worked, for several years. In general, salaries were reasonable, and people generally felt valued, and if they left, it was not because of pay.
"GrantTree extended this principle to everyone. By giving the entire team access to financial data and fostering a culture of accountability, employees were empowered to make balanced, informed decisions about their own pay."
The “No” perspective
However, self-set pay has significant challenges. Its success hinges on shared accountability and transparency, which is easier said than done.
At GrantTree, this meant employees presented their proposal to a selection of peers. The process involved gathering the relevant information, preparing a proposal, receiving feedback, and then deciding on a final figure.
The essence of what made it self-set pay is that, while the process only requires the employee to listen to the feedback, the ultimate pay decision was down to them, with no one “approving” or “rejecting” the final proposal once made.
While this ensured alignment, it also made the process intimidating. Asking for a pay rise is hard enough in a one-to-one setting; explaining why you should be paid more to your peers is another level of daunting!
Over time, we found that it is not abnormal for people to ask for a lower pay than they truly wanted out of caution, fear of judgement, or a desire to avoid rocking the boat.
"Asking for a pay rise is hard enough in a one-to-one setting; explaining why you should be paid more to your peers is another level of daunting!"
Most people opted to take on a more fact-based approach by doing thorough benchmarking. The process, while refreshing for some, became a burden for others.
Some people found the process so frightening they simply didn’t change their pay, which might seem like a positive to some business owners, but is actually a negative: remember that underpaid people tend to leave.
Ultimately, self-set pay wasn’t for everyone—or even most people. It required a level of openness and resilience that not all employees were comfortable with. And that was despite GrantTree going to great lengths to hire people that would thrive in our unique culture.
Why we moved on
A few years ago, GrantTree decided to end the self-set pay experiment and return to a more traditional pay review system. The feedback was clear: while self-set pay had merit, the process, as it was at the time, created too much anxiety.
Most employees at the time preferred a simpler approach that delegated back to managers the job of ensuring pay was reflective of market value.
I’d also like to share a personal observation: innovative ideas like self-set pay always come with their own unique challenges, requiring constant adjustment and fine-tuning. There’s often a mental tug-of-war between investing time and effort to address new issues that arise or reverting to a more traditional, tried-and-tested solution. At GrantTree, self-set pay was brought to life by passionate founders, and as they passed the reins to others, the system gradually faded away.
I believe this transition played a significant role in its evolution and its eventual decline.
What’s next for us?
When I joined GrantTree as Chairman and CEO, I brought with me lessons from my time (nearly a decade) at LetsBuild, where I ran a team of developers.
During the early days at LetsBuild, I sought advice from GrantTree’s founder, Daniel, about creating a fair pay system. He told me something that stuck:
“Don’t try to make pay fair—fair is subjective. Aim for a system that’s justified. You can’t guarantee everyone feels their pay is fair, but you can help them understand it’s justified.”
Inspired by this, I developed a framework over the years that combines the transparency of self-set pay with the stability of traditional systems. It’s a blend of open culture, clear roles, and structured pay bands—a system I call the “Role and Experience Ladder”. This is something that we’re considering testing as the successor to self-set pay and I’ll share more about it in a future post.
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Final thoughts
So, what did we learn?
Self-set pay was a bold experiment that brought valuable insights but ultimately proved too burdensome for most. While it worked in principle, our implementation wasn’t practical for the long term.
Today, we use a more traditional system that ensures salaries reflect individual contributions and market conditions. But we haven’t abandoned our commitment to autonomy and innovation.
GrantTree continues to empower its people with fully flexible working, generous benefits, and a decentralised management structure.
Self-set pay taught us that radical ideas can spark meaningful change, even if they don’t last forever. Sometimes, the best way forward is to take what works and adapt it into something better.
