Open last week’s calendar.
Count the kickoff calls and onboarding check-ins. Then the renewal prep and health reviews. And the expansion calls you joined with sales.
If all three show up, you’re doing three jobs under one title.
Three Jobs, One Title
Onboarding: getting new customers live, call by call, for weeks
Retention: keeping your book healthy and renewing
Expansion: finding and working growth deals with sales
At many companies, those are three roles → an onboarding specialist, a CSM, and an account manager.
When one person does three jobs, the role often gets paid like one, and rarely like the most expensive one.
That’s why “I’m underpaid” goes nowhere in a review.
It’s a feeling. The three jobs are a fact you can count.
What The Job Posts Say
I checked the 409 roles on TopCSJobs posted since late July and still open this week.
Only 20 have onboarding or implementation in the title. 293 are CSM or senior CSM roles.
Most companies don’t hire onboarding as its own job. They fold it into the CSM role.
Account load tells the same story. 12 of those CSM roles say how many accounts the role carries. Most sit between 10 and 150. One SMB role, at Posh, states 400.
So big books exist.
Roles at that volume are often built as scaled CS, with automation and pooled support doing much of the work. Add hands-on onboarding for every new customer, and the math stops working.
Price Each Job Before Review Season
You don’t need a perfect salary benchmark. You need to show what it would cost to replace you.
List the jobs you actually do
Onboarding, retention, expansion, renewals, support shifts.
Be specific: “80 onboardings this year” beats “I handle onboarding.”
Put hours next to each
Pull a typical month from your calendar.
Find what the market posts for each role
Look up posted ranges for onboarding, CSM, and account manager roles in your area. Pay transparency laws make many of them public now.
Add it up
That’s your replacement cost → what it takes to hire people for what you do today, plus months of ramp and the renewals at risk while they learn.
Bring numbers
Accounts onboarded, renewal rate, expansion you influenced.
One more check → if your bonus misses target even in a strong year, question the plan out loud before anyone questions you.
Before You Ask
Pay follows the revenue you own more than the effort you put in. Two posts to read before the conversation:
Your title says one job. Your calendar says three.
Get paid for the calendar.
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PS. Are you doing more than one job under one title? Hit reply and tell me which ones. I read every answer.