Yelp
San Francisco, CA · founded 2004
Yelp is the crowd-sourced local-review company (Yelp.com and the Yelp app), founded in San Francisco in 2004 by two ex-PayPal engineers. Since 2021 it has gone aggressively remote-first — 'work model puts you, not offices, first' — down to essentially one US office, with employees free to live where they like and only optional in-person 'IRL' gatherings through the year. The published US benefits are genuinely broad for a mid-size public company: 16 weeks birthing / 8 weeks non-birthing leave, a 50%-of-6% 401(k) match with a $3,000 floor, a 15% ESPP discount, Modern Health therapy, a Maven family-building platform, and an unusually wide wellness reimbursement (scuba gear and blackout curtains included). Culture is built around five values, one of which is literally 'Be Unboring,' and 20+ employee resource groups. The honest caveat: this record is built from Yelp's own marketing-toned careers pages, so treat the framing as the employer's; day-to-day sales-org culture and comp are not captured here.
see the full file on Yelpdocumented benefits (24)
| Birthing-parent leave | 16 weeks |
|---|---|
| Partner leave | 8 weeks |
| How leave is framed | birthing_partner |
| Adoption & surrogacy support | offered |
| Fertility support | yes |
| Help paying for childcare | yes |
| Retirement match | 50% of the first 6% of contributions (minimum $3,000/yr if you contribute at least 1%) |
| Retirement match ceiling | 3% |
| Stock purchase plan | yes |
| ESPP discount | 15% |
| Mental health | yes |
| Therapy platform | Modern Health |
| Gender-affirming care | yes |
| Dental | yes |
| Vision | yes |
| HSA | yes |
| FSA | yes |
| Pet insurance | yes |
| Employee discount portal | yes |
| Wellness stipend | offered |
| Phone & internet | offered |
| Home-office stipend | offered |
| Wellness / mental-health days | offered |
| Fully remote roles | yes |
what Yelp pays
Median of 7 certified wages filed with the US Department of Labor: $220,000.
Half of Yelp's certified filings fall between $189,000 and $248,000.
| role | median | filings | range |
|---|---|---|---|
| software engineer | $190,000 | 4 filings | $181,000 to $248,000 |
Source: US Department of Labor, FY2025 Q4. Read 2026-07-27.
notable perks
- Wellness reimbursement that goes well beyond gym memberships — reimbursable items include exercise bikes, smartwatches, ski or scuba equipment, meditation courses, weight-loss meal programs, weighted blankets, blackout curtains and air purifiers
- Airvet virtual pet care — on-demand vet access for everything from urgent health concerns to routine pet care
- Maven personal health platform for fertility and family-building, maternity and newborn care, parenting and pediatrics, and menopause and midlife health
- Out-of-state medical travel reimbursement — covers travel to another state when a covered medical service is unavailable at home due to legal restrictions
- Bravely confidential career coaching — on-demand expert coaches for workplace relationships, difficult conversations and performance-review discussions
the legal floor where they are
Set by law, not by Yelp. It applies to every employer in CA.
| IVF cycles the state covers | California requires IVF from 1 January 2026, and only from large employers. SB 729 (2024) rewrote Health and Safety Code § 1374.55 so that a large group health care service plan contract 'issued, amended, or renewed on or after January 1, 2026, shall provide coverage for the diagnosis and treatment of infertility and fertility services, including a maximum of three completed oocyte retrievals with unlimited embryo transfers', following ASRM guidelines and using single embryo transfer where medically appropriate. Large group means 100 or more employees. Small group plans need only be OFFERED the coverage rather than provide it, religious employers are excluded, Medi-Cal managed care is exempt, and CalPERS plans are delayed to 1 July 2027. The original 1 July 2025 date was pushed back a budget trailer bill, AB 116 (2025). THE LIMIT THAT DECIDES WHETHER THIS REACHES YOU: a state insurance mandate binds only fully insured plans. A self-funded employer plan is governed federally under ERISA and is preempted, and KFF's 2025 employer survey puts 67% of covered workers — 80% at firms of 200 or more — in a self-funded plan. At most large California employers this law therefore does not apply, and the fertility benefit on the page is the company's own choice. (Senate Bill 729 (2024), which repealed and added Section 1374.55 of the Health and Safety Code and amended Section 10119.6 of the Insurance Code; the operative date was moved from 1 July 2025 to 1 January 2026 by Assembly Bill 116 (2025).) |
|---|---|
| Adoption leave the law gives | 12 workweeks of UNPAID job-protected leave in any 12-month period on the placement of a child for adoption or foster care, and only for employees who meet the FMLA eligibility test. There is no federal paid adoption leave. (Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, 29 U.S.C. 2612(a)(1)(B) and 2612(c); eligibility at 29 U.S.C. 2611(2) and (4). Quoted from the 2023 edition of the US Code.) |
| Pay when you are ill | No federal law requires any paid sick leave. The FLSA does not require payment for time not worked, and the FMLA gives 12 workweeks of UNPAID job-protected leave in any 12-month period for a serious health condition, and only for employees who meet the FMLA eligibility test. Any paid sick time comes from a state or city law, or from the employer's own choice. (Fair Labor Standards Act, per the Department of Labor's statement on payment for time not worked; Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, 29 U.S.C. 2612(a)(1)(D) and 2612(c). Quoted from the 2023 edition of the US Code on govinfo.gov.) |
Every claim above is sourced and dated. See sources on the full page.
Work at Yelp and something here is wrong or out of date? Tell us at hello@perks.global and we will check it.