A hierarchical software profiling mechanism that gathers hierarchical path profile information has been described. Software to be profiled is instrumented with instructions that save an outer path sum when an inner region is entered, and restore the outer path sum when the inner region is exited. When the inner region is being executed, an inner path sum is generated and a profile indicator representing the inner path traversed is updated prior to the outer path sum being restored. The software to be profiled is instrumented using information from augmented control flow graphs that represent the software.