A band of 35 to 75 lakh is not the market being imprecise. It is the market pricing two genuinely different jobs that share a job title.
The title is the least useful thing in the brief
Two Finance Controllers with the same years behind them can be worth 35 lakh and 75 lakh. The gap is not seniority. It is how many entities, which reporting framework, whether there is an audit worth the name, and whether the person is running a finance function or building one.
Benchmarking on the title alone produces an offer at the middle of a band for a role that sits at one end of it — which is how a search loses its strongest candidate at the offer stage, having done everything else right.
The questions that move a role inside its band
Answer these before quoting a number, and the range narrows on its own.
- How many legal entitiesOne entity and four are not the same close.
- Which frameworkInd AS, IFRS or US GAAP, and who signs off on it.
- Build or maintainIs there a function already, or is this the person who creates one?
- Who audits itA Big 4 audit and a local statutory review test different depth.
- Team beneath themIndividual contributor, or a team of eight and a hiring plan.
Using a band well
Treat the published range as the boundary of a sensible conversation rather than as an answer. Start at the industry and scale, then place the specific role inside the band using scope, and only then compare against what the last person in the seat was paid.
The 2026 Salary Guide sets out the tables by sector and experience, and a section on what moves a candidate within a band — the part worth reading before setting a budget.