Why salary data doesn't tell you if you're in range with someone
The usual answers help you form a range. None of them tell you whether your range and theirs overlap.
Every compensation conversation mixes two questions that aren't the same: what is a reasonable range for this role, and whether these two people's stated ranges overlap. Market data, a posted range, and a paid estimate help with the first - they're reasonable ways to calibrate. None of them answer the second. Asking directly, on a call or in a chat, is an attempt to get that second answer by making the other person go first - which doesn't remove the risk, it just moves it.
What market data and compensation benchmarks tell you
Glassdoor, Levels.fyi, and paid compensation services use different data sources and methods. They still answer the same kind of question: what do people in comparable roles tend to earn. That's useful context for picking a range. It isn't an answer to the question that actually matters ten minutes into a call: is this specific person, right now, in range with me. Market data describes a population. It has never met either of you.
It helps each side choose a range. It does not compare their ranges.
What a posted range tells you
A posted range gets closer, since it's specific to the role instead of the whole market. But the range has flex built into it on purpose - "$120k-$180k" doesn't say whether the company would go to 180 for this candidate, or whether this candidate would take 120. That's exactly the part still being worked out, after the posting has already done its job.
Where a range is posted because a law requires it, that disclosure can matter. It is still a disclosure duty, not an agreement. It tells a candidate something the employer has to show. It does not tell either of you whether your ranges overlap.
What just asking tells you
A chat message, a shared spreadsheet, the cover of "I'm only asking so I can pass it to HR" - none of it removes the moment. Someone still has to send a number first. In practice, it's usually the candidate. One side learns the other's number before disclosing its own. Changing the channel does not change the mechanism.
What's actually missing
None of this was ever a missing-data problem. Candidates and employers already have ways to research and construct a range. What's missing is smaller: a way for the two specific people in the conversation to compare pay ranges without either one going first.
That's what Expectation Check is built to do - both sides submit a range privately, to a mechanism instead of to each other, and only then learn whether the ranges overlap. Neither side ever sees the other's actual numbers.
BallPark isn't compliance software, and nothing here is legal or HR advice - it doesn't replace what a pay-transparency law already requires an employer to disclose. What it does is narrower: give the two people in one conversation a private way to see whether their ranges overlap, without either one having to go first.