Choosing the right talent can make or break a startup. Not only can employees represent the heart and soul of a startup, they can also represent the company’s biggest expense, with compensation amounting to an estimated 50% to 75% of most startup budgets, according to recent research.
That’s why smart startups know that keeping employees happy is good for both the workers and the business. And though it’s not easy to assess which companies consistently maintain employee engagement and satisfaction, Forbes has made it easier by researching and ranking America’s Best Startup Employers 2025.
To create this sixth annual list of America’s Best Startup Employers, Forbes partnered with market research firm Statista to identify and assess 3,000 privately-held companies headquartered in the United States. To qualify for consideration, those startups were required to have more than 50 employees, to have been founded between 2015 and 2022, and to be an independent company as opposed to a spinoff of a larger corporation.
Each company was evaluated in three primary areas: company reputation, employee satisfaction and growth. To assess employer reputation, Statista culled articles, blogs and social media posts about each employer and identified such phrases as “corporate culture,” “employee engagement” and “company strategy.” Text analysis was used to categorize each finding as positive, negative or neutral. To evaluate employee satisfaction, Statista likewise researched online reviews, blog comments and company policies on such issues as compensation packages, healthcare and leave benefits, remote work and diversity-promoting initiatives. Growth was assessed by examining the organizations’ head counts, job openings and website traffic growth rate over a two-year period.
Ultimately, millions of such data points were used to determine the company scoring, and the 500 startups with the highest scores made our final ranking of America’s Best Startup Employers 2025.
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