VP of operations candidates at direct-to-consumer (DTC) and consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands target a median base salary of $210,000, with the middle half between $180,000 and $237,500, based on 51 VP-tier candidates Constant Hire spoke with between December 2024 and October 2026. That VP of operations salary is 1.5x the $140,000 median that operations and supply chain managers in the same dataset asked for. Bonus targets of 20% to 30% are common on top.
A VP of operations is the senior operations leader at a consumer brand that helps founders and CEOs grow revenue without margin or delivery breaking. The role owns the supply chain from suppliers and co-manufacturers to third-party logistics (3PL) partners and fulfillment.
These figures are what candidates said they need to move to a new company. That makes them the number a hiring brand has to meet. Public salary pages report what someone with a given job title earns now. Search for the average vice president of operations salary and you get national averages or figures pinned to single employers, mostly in healthcare, energy and banking.
What follows is the pay ladder from manager to VP, two real offers, six client budgets and how they moved, and the way VP packages split base pay, bonus and equity.
Table 1 groups Constant Hire’s VP of operations salary data, and the tiers below it, by the level of the seat each candidate held. Every figure is a base salary target: the yearly salary a candidate named before bonus or equity.
Source: Constant Hire candidate data, December 2024 to October 2026, 161 US operations candidates. Figures are candidate-stated target base salaries, not placement salaries. Ranges are midpoints.
The VP tier includes COOs, general managers and Heads of Operations at small brands, because each holds the top operations seat at their company. Pay for that seat still varies with brand size, as the section below shows. Director of operations salary targets had a median of $165,000, which is $45,000 below the VP median.
The manager row reads “operations and supply chain manager” because the records lean toward supply chain roles. For manager-tier bands by revenue stage, see our supply chain manager salary guide.
These asks don’t look inflated. The 12 VP-tier candidates who also shared current pay were earning close to their targets. That group is too small for a published median, but it suggests VP candidates aren’t asking for a big jump over what they make now.
VP of operations pay sits at the top of a ladder with uneven rungs. Table 2 shows the multiple between each tier’s median target base in Table 1.
Source: Computed from Table 1 medians. Constant Hire candidate data, December 2024 to October 2026, 161 US operations candidates. Figures are candidate-stated target base salaries, not placement salaries.
Across the 161 operations candidates Constant Hire spoke with, VP-level targets ran 1.5x what operations and supply chain managers asked for. A manager targeting $140,000 maps to a VP target around $210,000. The director to VP step, at 1.27x, is wider than manager to director at 1.18x.
That last step matters because of how searches are sourced. Constant Hire sources against the scope a client describes in the job description, meaning years of experience, responsibilities and results, and doesn’t filter on job title. A senior operations manager or Head of Operations with 8+ years who has already run VP-level scope can land on a VP shortlist.
That candidate prices the move as a VP seat, and a brand that sets its budget off their current title is pricing the wrong job.
So budget for the seat you are filling, whatever title the candidate holds today. If you’re unsure the role is VP-level at all, compare your draft job description with what an operations manager does before you set a number.
Job boards list the skills that affect vice president of operations salaries. In what we saw, brand revenue moved VP of operations salary targets more than title did, though each revenue group is small. VP-tier candidates at brands under $30M in revenue (n=4) targeted $150,000 to $175,000, a range that straddles the $165,000 director median in Table 1.
At brands between $30M and $100M (n=14), VP targets had a median of $218,750 and ran from $165,000 to $275,000. At $100M+ brands (n=6), they ran from $187,500 to $275,000. Directors at brands under $30M (n=4) had a median target of $135,000, or $30,000 below the director median for the full dataset.
Constant Hire’s read is that VP, COO and Head of Operations titles at small brands pay closer to director rates. A $12M brand calling the seat “VP” should benchmark against the scope of the job, not against VPs at $100M brands.
Our COO executive search page sets out revenue tiers for operations leadership. It places Head of Operations at $3M to $15M in revenue, VP of operations at $15M to $50M and COO at $50M to $150M+. The title a brand picks should follow its stage.
Revenue-band segments contain fewer than 15 records and are shown as observations, not benchmarks.
Two VP of operations offers from Constant Hire searches show how far base pay can spread under the same title. Neither client is named.
This VP reports to the CEO, with a stated path to COO. The search opened at $160,000 to $180,000 base with on-target earnings (OTE) above $200,000. Candidates were mostly targeting $220,000 to $250,000, and after that market feedback the budget moved to $250,000 to $270,000 base.
The finalist had been on about $200,000 base plus a 30% bonus, roughly $260,000 a year in total. To move, they needed at least $225,000 to $230,000 base. The client put two options in front of them.
Source: Constant Hire offer records, 2026. Client anonymized.
Both options used the same bonus structure. The bonus was tied only to operating margin, paying out from an 18% operating margin and reaching target at 35%, uncapped and paid quarterly. There was no 401(k), but a stipend covered the full health premium, and PTO was unlimited. The candidate chose Option B and its guaranteed base pay, leaving $110,000 of extra upside at target on the table.
This offer was $180,000 base, and the candidate accepted. The band was fixed at $180,000 from the start of the search, so the shortlist was built from candidates whose expectations fit it.
The two offers sit $50,000 apart on base for the same title. Offer 2’s fixed band sat below the $210,000 VP median in Table 1, and below every target we saw from VP candidates at $100M+ brands, yet it still produced a hire. What the band decided was who could be on the shortlist in the first place.
Operations budgets tend to open below the market, at VP level and below it. Table 4 covers six Constant Hire searches across operations levels, one of them for a VP.
Source: Constant Hire client search records, 2025 to 2026. Brands anonymized.
Across these searches, Constant Hire saw opening budgets run roughly a quarter below what candidates were asking. In three of the six, the client raised the budget before the hire, and two more closed above the opening number on base or bonus.
The MTRX Media case study is a public example at the Head of Operations level. The agency proposed $100,000 for its first Head of Operations while comparable candidates asked $140,000 to $200,000+. Constant Hire used live comparables from the search to reset the budget to $140,000 to $150,000, and the offer came 20 days after kickoff. The hire was based outside the US, so don’t read that range as a US VP benchmark.
A low opening costs more than a few weeks. Many senior operations candidates won’t enter an interview process until they know what the role pays, even when the recruiter says it’s negotiable. A low or missing salary range shrinks the shortlist before the first call.
Budgets were the side that moved. Candidate asks held steady, with a VP-tier median target of $212,500 in 2025 (n=26) and $207,500 in 2026 (n=23), according to Constant Hire candidate data.
A VP of operations package rarely stops at base salary. In Constant Hire screen notes, the bonus targets candidates quoted were 12%, 15%, 20%, 25% and 30%. Targets of 15% to 20% were most common below VP, and 20% to 30% at VP.
Several VP candidates told Constant Hire they would take a lower base for a bigger bonus. One VP earning $225,000 was open to $200,000 base with stronger upside. One director set a $180,000 floor but would accept performance pay to reach $200,000. For candidates like these, additional pay can decide a move as much as the base does.
Table 5 is an illustration, not a real search. It compares two ways to structure year-one pay for the same hire.
Source: Illustrative example built by Constant Hire. Not drawn from a specific search.
Offer B costs the brand $25,000 less in fixed base and pays the candidate $25,000 more in year-one cash at target, if the bonus pays out. Whether a candidate prefers it depends on how much they trust the targets.
Equity came up mostly at VP level and at venture-backed brands, which trade ownership for the executives who can drive growth. Some smaller brands offer it too when they plan for, or expect, an acquisition. One VP of commerce offer in Constant Hire data included 0.5% to 1% equity with a one-year cliff.
Candidates often read an equity percentage as a straight cut of the sale price. At venture-backed brands, investor terms such as liquidation preferences change what common equity pays out. Explain those terms when you make the offer, before the candidate does the math on their own.
A COO usually sits above a VP of operations, and VPs often report to the COO or the CEO. That makes COO pay the practical ceiling for VP of operations pay. At smaller brands the titles blur, as the brand-size data above showed, and our COO executive search page sets out where each seat fits by revenue stage.
At the COO level, Constant Hire ran a search for an in-person role at a $20M business with $250,000 all-in compensation.
The highest operations packages in Constant Hire data sit outside the tier statistics above. One was a President and COO at an apparel DTC brand at $500,000 base plus a $375,000 bonus. The other was a VP of operations strategy at a multi-billion-dollar retailer at about $500,000 total, roughly two-thirds of it base. In our data, operations pay reached $500,000 only at that scale.
Federal data doesn’t fill the gap. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has no VP of operations category. VPs fall inside General and Operations Managers, a broad group that also covers general managers at small businesses, with a national median of $105,770 in May 2025 and the top 10% earning more than $253,390. Chief Executives, the closest federal proxy for the COO ceiling, had a $213,990 median, with the top 10% above $507,730. For the highest paying cities, see operations pay by metro.
If you are weighing a commercial leader instead, see how to hire a VP of ecommerce.
Setting a VP of operations salary starts with the job description. Write down what the seat owns, whether that’s suppliers, co-manufacturers, 3PLs, inventory or customer service, before anyone names a figure. Then match that scope to a tier in Table 1 and set the job title aside for now.
Open the range at or near what candidates at that tier ask for. Searches with no posted range lose the senior people who won’t interview without one. Decide the base and upside mix before the first interview, and share the range early.
Constant Hire runs VP of operations searches through its executive search for DTC and consumer brands practice and delivers first interviews within 10 business days. In the Hollow Socks case study, Constant Hire placed a VP of Operations for a 9-figure DTC portfolio. To scope your search, book a call.
Based on 51 VP-tier candidates Constant Hire spoke with between December 2024 and October 2026, VP of operations candidates target a median base salary of $210,000. The middle half sits between $180,000 and $237,500. In what we saw, pay rose with brand size and scope, though the revenue groups are small. Bonus targets of 20% to 30% are common at this level.
No. A COO usually sits above a VP of operations, and VPs often report to the COO. At smaller brands the line blurs. COO, VP and Head of Operations titles can cover the same scope. In a small sample of Constant Hire candidate data from brands under $30M, those titles priced closer to director rates. Scope and brand size say more than the title.
Federal wage data has no separate VP of operations category. BLS groups these leaders with general and operations managers, whose national median was $105,770 in May 2025. In Constant Hire candidate data from DTC and CPG brands, the VP-tier median target base is $210,000, across 51 US candidates from December 2024 to October 2026.
In Constant Hire candidate data, VP of operations targets ran 1.5x what operations and supply chain managers asked for and 1.27x director targets. COO pay sits higher. A COO search Constant Hire ran for a $20M brand came in at $250,000 all-in, and the largest package in our data was a President and COO at $500,000 base plus bonus.
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