Companies in St. Louis: the headquarters, the employee-owned giants and 69,470 businesses

This page is for job seekers, buyers checking a supplier, analysts and B2B sellers who need a working list of companies in St. Louis. It covers the public headquarters, the large private and employee-owned firms that still report to the SEC, who employs the most people, the full count of business locations on both sides of the river, and how to check and prospect them.

The biggest companies headquartered in St. Louis

Ranked by revenue in each company's latest annual report on Form 10-K, using the headquarters on the filing's cover. Stifel's figure is net revenue, after interest expense.

Bunge needs a note. Its 10-K cover gives a registered office and principal executive offices in Geneva, Switzerland, and separately names its corporate headquarters at 1391 Timberlake Manor Parkway in Chesterfield; we count it as a St. Louis headquarters on the strength of that second address. Greater St. Louis, Inc. says Bunge chose St. Louis for its headquarters in 2019. Amdocs is a harder case: it files as a Guernsey company, and its annual report cover lists both its Guernsey office and its US subsidiary's St. Louis office, so we leave it off. The full ranked list of 22, with headcounts, is on our page on the largest companies in St. Louis.

Two giants you won't find on a stock exchange

Both are bigger than all but four of the listed companies above, and both appear in their own 10-Ks, so their figures are as reliable as any public company's. Other large St. Louis firms, such as Enterprise Mobility, which Greater St. Louis, Inc. names among the region's leading companies, don't file at all.

Who employs the most people

St. Louis has no current region-wide ranked employer list that we could open, so these come from two published sources. Missouri Partnership, the state's economic development organization, names BJC HealthCare, SSM Health and Washington University, all based in St. Louis, among Missouri's largest employers. And the Economic Development Council of St. Charles County publishes counts for its biggest employers (September 2023):

Boeing and True Manufacturing are also on the county's list, with undisclosed counts. Treat these as 2023 figures.

How many businesses are in St. Louis

The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP) counts business locations with paid employees. For the St. Louis, MO-IL Metro Area (CBSA 41180) in 2023:

That's 58,020 locations with 1 to 19 employees, 9,553 with 20 to 99 and 1,897 with 100 or more. The metro has 15 counties in two states; the eight largest hold 94.2% of establishments:

The city of St. Louis, a county of its own, has the biggest workplaces on average (23.1 employees each). CBP counts establishments, not companies; it leaves out the self-employed, businesses without payroll and government, and employment is for the pay period including March 12, 2023.

What kinds of companies St. Louis has

Average pay is our calculation: payroll divided by employees. The 910 management offices are the headquarters signal: Pittsburgh, a metro of similar size, has 562. Finance and insurance pays $116,689 on average, in a region that is home to brokerage and reinsurance headquarters such as Edward Jones, Stifel and RGA. For sector detail, see the reports on St. Louis construction companies and St. Louis law firms.

How to check a St. Louis company

A company in the metro may be registered in Missouri, Illinois or both, so check the right state's records: the Missouri Secretary of State's business entity search for Missouri firms and the Illinois Secretary of State's business entity search for Metro East firms.

Prospecting St. Louis companies

St. Louis's finance cluster is a good example of how the same industry splits into very different buyers. Of its 4,913 finance and insurance locations, 3,111 have fewer than five employees. Many are branch offices of national firms, where technology and compliance decisions are made at headquarters; the rest are independent advisers, agencies and lenders who decide for themselves.

Illustrative example. The company, prices and results are fictional, to show the method.

Gateway SecureOps (gatewaysecureops.example) provides managed cybersecurity for small financial firms.

• St. Louis finance and insurance locations with 5 to 49 employees: 1,001 + 409 + 215 = 1,625.
• It assumes half are branches of national firms that buy centrally, leaving about 810 independent firms.
• At $2,500 a month and a 2% win rate in the first year, 16 clients add $480,000 in annual revenue.
• It leads with the regulators' expectations each firm already faces, not with technology.

Separating independent firms from branches is the slow part; Bebop can search for "independent St. Louis financial advisory and insurance firms with 5 to 49 employees" and explain why each fits.

Subject: Your next cybersecurity exam at [Firm]

Hi [first name],

Firms your size usually find out what's missing from their cybersecurity program when an examiner asks for it.

We run security for 30 independent St. Louis advisory and insurance firms on a flat monthly fee, and we prepare the evidence binder for exams. Would a 20-minute gap check against what examiners asked our clients this year be useful?

[Your name], Gateway SecureOps

Next step: turn these counts into a target list with how to build a prospect list.