Designer Salaries and The Dark Future of Our Careers

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*Salary data was taken from several different online sources and averaged out. Actual figures may vary slightly.

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0:00 Intro
1:13 Average salary of a graphic designer:
1:39 Average salary of a UI designer:
1:52 Average salary of a UX designer:
2:09 Average salary of a web designer:
2:22 Comparing average salaries
4:17 Major issues with designer salaries
7:44 How to increase your salary as a designer

Designer Salaries and The Dark Future of Our Careers

[futuretech]

Really it's alarming man, it's going to be hard to survive for designers in further future, it going to hit hard if the situation stays the same, i think there should be some regulative body to creates a balance of prices between designers.

[nosauce]

Great video because I have been feeling the pain of not being paid enough, having a cheap employeer and inflation. I am taking the plunge and starting my own agency and I've been binge watching your content. I love your content, its been extremely helpful. I can even happily say I have some clients already lined up.

[JimiJah]

Payton, thank you for these high-quality videos! They make me more focused and less lonely as a web designer. Cheers from Lisbon, Portugal 🙏🏽🇵🇹

[matthewslyh]

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but for other professions like "truck drivers" your data might actually be making the argument that truck drivers were "underpaid" back in 2010 and are only now catching up. So is it that designers are not keeping up or were designers overpaid compared to other professions back in 2010? It's hard to say. My guess is that you are right. But my point is that looking exclusively at percentages like these don't tell the whole story. And as others have pointed out, globalization is definitely an issue that impacts designers that doesn't impact truck drivers. I can't hire a truck driver in India to drive my truck in the US. But I can go on fiver and find 1000 "designers" that will spit out cookie cutter designs for next to nothing. And unless you are one of the big fortune 500 companies that is looking to distinguish itself through its web/app presence, those cookie cutter designs are usually "good enough" for most small companies. Finally, most small companies do not have the resources to keep designers on staff so "salary" may not be the best indicator of how well designers are getting paid. What percentage of actual web/app design is done through consulting gigs rather than through salaried employees?

[mariaines]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I've been looking for work for the past few months and I'm shocked to see the same salaries from more than 10 years ago. If you are based in the USA, like me, I think remote work is affecting how we are all getting paid, meaning, salaries are becoming more even disregarding where in the country one lives. Only a few companies offer location-based salaries.

Secondly, now we are also competing with designers from the rest of the world. Companies are outsourcing our jobs, they can get 5 designers from, let's say, Chile for the price of 1 USA designer. :(

[RocknRollCEO]

Excellent episode, Pait. The trend is, unfortunately, natural. In "tech", more than any other industry, when you're the "first", fees / prices can and will be at a high premium, then as the competition with solutions increases, the curve will drastically decrease. Anyone can build a website with, say, Wix these days... So unless, as you've said in your videos many times, you can provide additional value, this trend won't change for the many.

[filetmignon]

Could it be that it looks like we get paid less be due to the sources you used? What I mean is: If those sources took salaries from everywhere and everyone, wouldn't it make sense that the number is lower? This field has exploded in popularity and has become incredibly saturated with young designers. With so many new designers starting out at the same time, they'll obviously make less at the beginning. Could it be that the numbers look low because of that, and not because we're being "underpaid"?

[CrystalRicotta]

As a self employed designer I greatly appreciate this content 💸

[muhammadbacar]

Nice vid tho. I 100% agree with you on the fact that we as designers should increase our prices because we are more demanded and more of us are coming. We should act like the developers while pricing. I actually believe that design should be more paid than developement.

[whatznext]

This is a great video. I'm new to the industry. What tips do you have for verbalizing our value?

[statusquoreject]

Would’ve been nice if you included industrial designer salaries. Industrial design is by far the most difficult design area, it requires far more skill than ux, ui, or graphic design; yet it seems to have some of the lowest salaries.

[chriskramer]

the answer is so obvious, people in these jobs do not advocate for themselves. Marketing managersn do.

[tuams]

Great content as always! Maybe you can make a video about Adobe buying Figma? Would be interesting to understand why, oh god why did they do it?

[tomimdawodu]

Hello could you make a part two to the web and app hero section layout videos. They have been so helpful but now I would like to learn other layouts and layout combinations for the rest of the site and app that works and also looks balanced and structured and flows very well from the hero to footer

[atharvakhodke]

Sad Reality! ... Man, can you make a video on charging clients as a freelancer...like how and how much should we charge for web development works for clients

[abirahmed]

Well you must checkout the factors of Graphic Designer. We change our job and upgrade ourself every time, even if we don't change our career we are being paid based on our experience. Those numbers I believe are being added by Jr Designer. I was back in 2015 working as a Graphic Designer and in 2018 I started to work as a Visual Designer for Web, then in 2021 I started learning Webflow and now I am full time working as a Webflow Developer or you can say Front end Designer with Design experience. So 59k I believe is a decent salary for beginners I guess in USA?

[deepcleanhomes]

Technology has change a lot, the problem the vast are not creative. Average is average.

[reinoldg]

What’s the difference between PaitPro and PaitAcademy?

[atlasdigitalcompany]

I believe this comes with the vast number of competitors entering these markets. Try comparing the number of web designers in 2010 with 2020.

Our business does the usual web design, SEO, and "some" digital marketing add-ons. I get 1-3 emails daily from India offering to make me a new website and/or SEO work. While it's plenty of fun to call them out on their manners, these people provide bottom-feeder prices for their services while they can't spell in English correctly.

Where I am going with this is that my guess is that probably 90% of the world's web designers are of low quality and provide pump-and-dump services, which are tarnishing the ones trying their best.

For example, the work being done at Pait Digital is entirely professional, and perhaps it is time to re-examine your pricing structure by adding another 15 to 25% to your fees. My guess is that you'll become busier rather than not.

My little outfit is new and yet to get off the ground, so my prices reflect that. You can bet that prices will increase once I have 5 to 10 clients under my umbrella.

A story: I learned many years ago as a wedding DJ in my hometown that of 15 of us charging $300 per evening, one guy was charging $3000, and he was busier than all of us. So when I learned of this, my prices increased, and the more business I secured.

[bhukyadayakar]

hey payton this is important!!!! suggest me some website where I can find high income webflow developer jobs. I found many but the salaries were so low. As an agency owner you may know where to find high paying jobs & with your experience how much a webflow developer who is good at designs(fonts, typography, color schemes), animations& interactions along with lottieflies & aftereffects should earn/charge? & where to find them?