What 6,200 Therapists Taught Me About Fair Pay
The case for salary transparency in India’s neurodiversity workforce
When I started building Asdflo, I wasn’t thinking about salary transparency. I was thinking about people.
After spending years in HR and talent acquisition, I wanted to understand the world of neurodiversity from those living it every day. I spoke with Speech Language Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Special Educators, Behaviour Therapists, Psychologists, Shadow Teachers, parents, and therapy centre owners across India. One conversation became ten, ten became hundreds, and before I realized it, I had connected with more than 6,200 professionals.
Each conversation left me with a better understanding of the ecosystem. But they also revealed a problem I hadn’t gone looking for.
A simple question with no simple answer
No matter where the conversation started, it often ended with the same question.
“Am I being paid fairly?”
It sounds like a straightforward question, but I quickly realized how difficult it was to answer.
Where do therapists compare salaries?
Where can a fresher understand what an entry-level role should pay?
How does someone with five or ten years of experience know whether they’re being compensated competitively?
Unlike many other professions, there wasn’t a trusted benchmark. There were no widely accepted salary reports, no comprehensive industry data, and very little transparency. Most people relied on conversations with friends, WhatsApp groups, or whatever information happened to reach them.
For a profession built on evidence and measurable outcomes, career decisions were being made with remarkably little evidence.
The professionals helping children deserve better career visibility
The neurodiversity ecosystem has grown significantly over the last decade.
More parents are seeking support than ever before. New therapy centres are opening across cities large and small. Awareness around autism, ADHD, developmental delays, and learning disabilities is steadily increasing.
Behind that growth is a workforce of dedicated professionals who spend years developing highly specialized skills. They celebrate first words, first steps, first eye contact, and countless milestones that change families forever.
Yet, despite the impact of their work, their own career journeys remain surprisingly difficult to navigate.
Salary expectations vary dramatically from one city to another. Job titles are often inconsistent. Compensation depends as much on negotiation as it does on qualifications or experience. Without reliable data, both professionals and employers are left making important decisions based on assumptions.
This isn’t only about salaries
Initially, I thought the problem was compensation.
Over time, I realized it was something much deeper.
It’s about confidence.
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When professionals don’t know what the market looks like, negotiating becomes uncomfortable. When employers don’t have industry benchmarks, building competitive compensation structures becomes difficult. When students graduate without understanding career progression, planning their future becomes little more than educated guesswork.
Transparency doesn’t eliminate inequality overnight, but it gives everyone the same starting point.
And that changes the quality of decisions people make.
The idea we never planned to build
Founders often like to think they have great instincts.
In reality, the best product decisions usually come from listening.
We didn’t sit in a room and decide that Asdflo should build a salary survey.
The community kept leading us there.
Every conversation added another piece to the puzzle until the picture became impossible to ignore. We realized the ecosystem didn’t just need more jobs or better hiring. It needed shared knowledge.
Knowledge that belonged to everyone.
Building India’s first anonymous salary survey
That’s why we’re launching India’s first anonymous salary survey for neurodiversity professionals.
The goal isn’t to compare organizations or judge employers.
It’s to create something that has never truly existed for this community: reliable salary benchmarks built by the professionals themselves.
Imagine a student accepting their first role with realistic expectations instead of uncertainty.
Imagine an experienced therapist negotiating based on industry data rather than assumptions.
Imagine therapy centres making compensation decisions with confidence because they understand the broader market.
That’s the future we’re hoping to help create.
Every response becomes part of a bigger picture
No single survey response will transform the profession.
But thousands of anonymous responses can.
They can reveal trends that have remained hidden for years. They can help professionals make informed career decisions. They can help organizations attract and retain talent more effectively. Most importantly, they can bring greater transparency to a profession that deserves far more visibility than it currently has.
Sometimes meaningful change doesn’t begin with a groundbreaking invention.
Sometimes it begins with simply measuring what has never been measured before.
I believe this is one of those moments.
If you’re part of India’s neurodiversity ecosystem, I hope you’ll help us build something that benefits the entire community, not just today, but for years to come.
