Tech companies in Austin, Texas: how many, how big and where

This report is for anyone sizing up Austin's tech companies from the outside: founders choosing a development partner, job seekers mapping employers, analysts and investors, and B2B sellers whose customers are software and IT firms. It counts the businesses from federal data, shows how big they are and where they sit, then lists the local sources that name them and a way to work through them.

How many tech companies are in Austin

The US Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP) counts 3,712 tech establishments in the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX Metro Area (CBSA 12420) in 2023. "Tech" here means four industry groups in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS): software publishers (5112), computer systems design and related services (5415), data processing, hosting and related services (518), and other information services (5191, mostly internet publishing).

Average pay is total payroll divided by employees, so it blends engineers, support staff and executives. It isn't a salary survey, but it does show how expensive this workforce is, which is why so many vendors sell to it.

What kinds of tech companies Austin has

The metro file breaks the total down by industry. Average pay below is payroll divided by employees; the Census Bureau adds a small amount of statistical noise to employee and payroll figures, so treat these as close estimates.

Three in four establishments are IT services firms: 1,461 do custom programming and 1,095 do systems design and integration. Software publishers are far fewer but much larger, at about 72 employees per establishment against about 15 for services firms. If you're looking for a development agency, you're in the 5415 group; if you're looking for product companies, you're in the 427.

Size: thousands of small shops, a short list of large sites

Grouped, that's 3,206 establishments with 1 to 19 employees, 313 with 20 to 99 and 190 with 100 or more. The classes add up to 3,709, three short of the total, because the Census Bureau withholds a few size cells to protect confidentiality.

Where they are: Travis County first

Travis County holds 71% of the establishments and 84% of the employees, averaging about 30 employees per establishment. Williamson averages about 16 and Hays fewer than 3, which tells you the large offices are in Travis and the suburbs hold many small firms and home-based consultancies. Caldwell County, the fifth county in the metro, has no published row for these industries, so the county figures add up to six fewer than the metro total.

For comparison, the Dallas-Fort Worth tech market has more than twice as many establishments at a lower average pay, and Denver's is slightly smaller than Austin's.

What the Census count leaves out

• Establishments, not companies. An establishment is a single physical location. A company with offices downtown and in Round Rock counts twice, and a remote-first company with no Austin office may not count at all.
• No self-employed. Freelance developers and consultants without employees are out of scope, and in tech that's a large group.
• Industry boundaries. Semiconductor and hardware makers are classified in manufacturing, and an in-house IT team at a bank is counted under banking, so neither appears here.
• Timing. Employment is for the week of March 12, 2023. The data was released in 2025.

Where to find Austin tech companies by name

The Census Bureau doesn't publish names. These local sources do, or let you check a name you already have.

The City of Austin's Economic Development Department and the Chamber's regional program, Opportunity Austin, publish news on relocations and expansions, which is where new large sites show up first.

How to shortlist and vet a tech company to hire or partner with

1. Decide which group you need. A five-person consultancy and a 300-person software company sell very different things. Use the size table to know how many candidates you're choosing from.
2. Confirm the entity. Look the company up in the Comptroller's search and check its right to transact business is active. If it trades under another name, find the DBA.
3. Confirm the work happens here. Ask where the people doing your work are based. Many Austin addresses are sales offices for teams elsewhere.
4. Ask for two references like you. Same industry, similar size, work finished in the last year.
5. Check security before data changes hands. Ask for a SOC 2 report or a completed security questionnaire if they'll touch your systems or customer data.

Prospecting Austin tech companies

If you sell to these firms, the size table is also your org chart.

A workable plan:

1. Pick one band and one industry group. "Software publishers with 20 to 249 employees" is a list; "Austin tech" isn't.
2. Build the list from the directories above, then remove branch offices whose buying happens out of state.
3. Find the person who owns your problem at each account (see how to find decision makers).
4. Find a reason now: a funding round, a new office, a security or compliance hire, an enterprise customer win.
5. Write one short email per account that leads with that reason.

At volume, the research in steps 3 and 4 is the slow part. Bebop finds companies that match a plain-language description and writes a playbook for each, so you start from the reason to call rather than a blank list.

Worked example: sizing a list for a compliance auditor

Illustrative example. The firm, people and rates are fictional, to show the method.

Ledgerline Assurance (ledgerline.example) runs SOC 2 audits and wants Austin clients that sell software to larger companies, which tend to ask for a SOC 2 report.

• Establishments with 20 to 249 employees: 210 + 103 + 122 = 435.
• Ledgerline assumes 40% are product or hosting companies rather than staffing-style services firms: 435 × 0.4 = 174.
• It assumes a quarter are branch offices that buy centrally elsewhere: 174 × 0.75 = about 130 accounts.
• At 5 meetings per 100 accounts contacted, that's about 6 meetings. If one in four becomes a client, about 2 new audits.

Subject: [Company]'s SOC 2 timeline

Hi [first name],

I saw [Company] [announced its first enterprise customer / opened a security engineer role] last month. That's usually when the first SOC 2 questionnaire lands.

We've run Type 1 and Type 2 audits for [number] Austin software teams of your size. Most were surprised which controls they already had.

Worth 15 minutes on [day] to map what you'd need and how long it would take?

[Your name], Ledgerline Assurance

Next step: turn the shortlist into a working list with how to build a prospect list.