A salary band is simply a pay range for a role or level, often set from market data alone. A salary grid goes further — it's the structured output of a job evaluation process, mapping roles to pay ranges based on their assessed relative value within the organisation, not just what the market pays. This distinction matters under the EU Pay Transparency Directive: the law requires pay structures built on objective, gender-neutral criteria and equal pay for equal-value work, and a properly built grid satisfies both requirements in a way a simple band doesn't guarantee. Assessio's Compensation Grids module is built on this job-evaluation foundation, which is also what makes pay gap data meaningful — without a grid providing structural context, a reported gap has nothing to be measured against.