Social Media Manager Salary: What the Data Says (2026)
There is no single social media manager salary. The four U.S. salary sites we compared put it anywhere from an average base salary of $60,881 a year (Payscale, checked )Salary-site estimate to a median of $112,760 a year (Salary.com, checked )Salary-site estimate, because each measures something different: base or total pay, job ads or self-reports, and a title that means different things at different employers.
New to the field? Start with how to become a social media manager.
Government data can’t settle it either: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has no social media manager occupation, so every “BLS social media manager salary” is a proxy. Its newest median for the closest match, public relations specialists, is $74,750 a year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, checked ) for May 2025, up from $69,780 in May 2024. Source: BLS OEWS national estimates, May 2024 and May 2025, checked ; page date: May 2024 and May 2025 estimates Pages quoting the lower number use last year’s data.
Table of Contents
- How much do social media managers make?
- Social media manager salary by source
- Why the figures disagree
- What the government data says
- Specialist and coordinator pay
- Do social media managers make $100k?
- Freelance pay
- Job outlook, 2025 to 2035
- Negotiating with salary data
- FAQ
How Much Do Social Media Managers Make? The Short Answer
Three of the four salary sites put typical pay between $60,881 a year (Payscale, checked )Salary-site estimate (Payscale’s average base salary) and $71,013 a year (Glassdoor, checked )Archived copy, 7 June 2025 (Glassdoor’s median total pay, April 2025), with Indeed’s job-posting average of $65,584 a year (Indeed, checked )Salary-site estimate in between. Salary.com is far higher.
Pay rises with experience. Payscale’s average total compensation is $45,496 (131 salaries) with under a year’s experience and $57,111 (1,627 salaries) at one to four years. Source: Payscale, Social Media Manager Salary, checked ; page date: last updated 2026-06-22Salary-site estimate
Social Media Manager Salary by Source: Five Figures Compared
Check how each figure was measured: self-reports, job ads, a pay model, employer data and a government survey each give a different number. The last row is the BLS proxy, public relations specialists.
| Source | Figure | How it is measured | Dates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payscale, Social Media Manager Salary Salary-site estimate | $61,000 a year, median Range: $41,000–$88,000 a year, 10th–90th percentile (rounded by Payscale) | Self-reported salary profiles submitted to Payscale's survey. | Checked 3 October 2026 Page date: last updated 2026-06-22 |
| Indeed, Social Media Manager salary in United States Salary-site estimate | $65,584 a year, average Range: $41,184–$104,440 a year, Indeed's 'Low' and 'High' labels (not explained on the page) | Advertised pay in job postings on Indeed over the past 36 months (not what employees report earning). | Checked 3 October 2026 Page date: updated 2026-09-28 |
| Glassdoor, Social Media Manager Salaries (Internet Archive capture) Archived copy, 7 June 2025 | $71,013 a year, median Range: $53,000–$96,000 a year, Glassdoor 'Most Likely Range' = 25th–75th percentile of total pay | Glassdoor's proprietary machine-learning Total Pay Estimate, built from salaries its users submit plus government data; Glassdoor says the figures are medians. | Checked 3 October 2026 Page date: last updated 2025-04-10Archive capture: 7 June 2025 |
| Salary.com, Social Media Manager Salary in the United States Salary-site estimate | $112,760 a year, median Range: $89,338–$134,902 a year, 10th–90th percentile | Salary.com describes its data as employer-reported and HR-verified, and says it also uses employer job postings and third-party sources. | Checked 3 October 2026 Page date: as of 2026-10-01 |
| ZipRecruiter, Social Media Manager Salary Not verified | No figure: could not be verified | ZipRecruiter's own estimate (method not read). | Checked 3 October 2026 |
| U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 national estimates | $74,750 a year, median Range: $44,110–$135,150 a year, 10th–90th percentile | OEWS May 2025 employer survey of establishments; wages are straight-time gross pay; employment excludes the self-employed (BLS field description). Read from national_M2025_dl.xlsx. | Checked 3 October 2026 Page date: May 2025 estimates, released 2026-05-15 |
Salary-site estimate: A salary or rate site's own estimate, with its own method; not a government statistic. Archived copy: Read from an Internet Archive capture of the source, not the live page. Not verified: Could not be loaded or confirmed on the source; not stated as fact.
Why Do Social Media Manager Salary Figures Disagree?
Four things move the number: whether bonuses count, where the data come from, what “manager” means and, for government data, which occupation stands in for the job.
Base pay or total pay
Glassdoor’s April 2025 estimate shows the gap: median total pay of $71,013 a yearArchived copy, 7 June 2025, with a median base salary of $59,844 per year and estimated additional pay of $11,170 per year. Source: Glassdoor, Social Media Manager Salaries (Internet Archive capture), checked ; page date: last updated 2025-04-10Archived copy, 7 June 2025 Payscale’s headline is base salary only.
Job ads, self-reports or employer data
Indeed’s figure is pay advertised in its job postings over the past 36 months; Payscale’s comes from profiles its users submit; Salary.com calls its data employer-reported and HR-verified, plus postings and third-party sources. Ads can omit bonuses, and self-reports depend on who answers.
”Manager” means different things
Titles aren’t standardized: a small company’s “social media manager” may run every account alone, while a large brand’s leads a team and a budget. A social media manager job description shows how far the scope stretches.
Government figures are proxies
BLS classifies jobs by duties, not titles, so any single “BLS social media manager salary” has picked an occupation for you. Source: BLS OEWS May 2025 occupation profiles index and national data file, checked ; page date: May 2025 estimates, released 2026-05-15
What Does the Government Data Say, and Why Is It a Proxy?
None of BLS’s occupations is called social media manager. The four nearest, which we chose from O*NET’s definitions, run from a May 2025 median of $74,750 a year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, checked ) for public relations specialists to $166,790 a year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, checked ) for marketing managers. O*NET says public relations specialists “may specialize in using social media.” Source: O*NET OnLine, Summary Report for 27-3031.00 Public Relations Specialists, checked
| Occupation (BLS code), May 2025 | Median annual wage | Mean annual wage | 10th–90th percentile | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public relations specialists (27-3031) | $74,750 | $84,120 | $44,110–$135,150 | 283,380 |
| Market research analysts and marketing specialists (13-1161) | $78,760 | $89,490 | $43,390–$155,480 | 899,580 |
| Public relations managers (11-2032) | $146,910 | $164,760 | $82,410–$284,990 | 74,850 |
| Marketing managers (11-2021) | $166,790 | $177,770 | $90,260–$293,610 | 395,240 |
| All occupations, for comparison | $50,980 | $69,770 | $31,200–$128,560 | — |
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 national estimates, checked ; page date: May 2025 estimates, released 2026-05-15.
All rows share that file, whose job counts exclude the self-employed. The marketing medians rose too, from $76,950 and $161,030 in May 2024. Source: BLS OEWS national estimates, May 2024 and May 2025, checked ; page date: May 2024 and May 2025 estimates
The two manager rows are ceilings that fit a head of social, not a typical social media manager. BLS’s May 2025 mean wage for marketing managers is $177,770 a year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, checked ); if you’ve seen that number quoted as the average social media manager salary, it isn’t one.
How Much Do Social Media Specialists and Coordinators Make?
Less than managers, on the one source here that reports all three titles on the same basis. Payscale’s average base salary is $55,028 a year (Payscale, checked )Salary-site estimate for a social media specialist and $48,350 a year (Payscale, checked )Salary-site estimate for a coordinator, against $60,881 a year (Payscale, checked )Salary-site estimate for a manager.
Indeed quotes both junior titles by the hour, and we don’t convert them: $21.13 an hour (Indeed, checked )Salary-site estimate for specialists and $21.64 an hour (Indeed, checked )Salary-site estimate for coordinators, so its coordinator average is slightly the higher one.
O*NET lists Social Media Specialist as a sample job title for Search Marketing Strategists (13-1161.01), part of the 13-1161 group above (checked 3 October 2026): a loose proxy, since the group also covers market research analysts. See what a social media specialist does and the social media coordinator job description.
Do Social Media Managers Make $100k?
Some do, but on most sources $100,000 sits at the top of the range. Payscale’s 90th percentile for base salary is $88,000 a year (Payscale, checked )Salary-site estimate, and the top of Glassdoor’s April 2025 most-likely range (the 75th percentile of total pay) was $96,000 a year (Glassdoor, checked )Archived copy, 7 June 2025. Only Salary.com puts typical pay above it: on its numbers, even the 25th percentile is $100,500. Source: Salary.com, Social Media Manager Salary in the United States, checked ; page date: as of 2026-10-01Salary-site estimate
The usual route past six figures is scope: managing people and a budget.
How Much Do Freelance Social Media Managers Make?
No reliable public figure exists. BLS wage data exclude the self-employed, Payscale’s self-employed page rests on 3 survey responses, ZipRecruiter’s freelance pages couldn’t be loaded, and Upwork’s band of $14–$35 an hour (Upwork, checked )Archived copy, 21 April 2026 is a worldwide median from past contracts on its marketplace, read from an archived copy. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 national estimates, checked ; page date: May 2025 estimates, released 2026-05-15 Source: Payscale, Social Media Manager Hourly Pay at Self-Employed, checked ; page date: 2026 (no update date shown)Salary-site estimate Source: ZipRecruiter, Freelance Social Media Management Salary, checked Not verified
Set a rate from your own hours, costs and target income instead. The social media rate calculator turns your rate and a client’s workload into a price, with no assumed market rate, and social media management packages covers retainers.
Software is one of those costs. Outfeed AI, which publishes this guide, schedules posts from a chat or a composer. Starter and Pro are flat monthly prices, not billed per seat. Agency is billed per seat. Enterprise is custom. Our guide to per-seat vs per-account pricing compares the two models.
Schedule your clients’ posts from one chat
What Is the Job Outlook for 2025 to 2035?
Slow for the closest proxy, and BLS now names AI as a risk. Employment of public relations specialists is projected to grow 2% (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, checked ) from 2025 to 2035, slower than the 3% (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook (projection charts), checked ) average for all occupations, with about 23,000 openings a year. BLS expects social media to create opportunities, but warns that AI “is increasingly making inroads into data-rich social media, which may soften demand for these workers.”
The marketing proxies look stronger: BLS projects 7% (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, checked ) growth for market research analysts and marketing specialists and 7% (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, checked ) for marketing managers. For the skills AI can’t supply alone, see social media manager skills by level.
How Should You Use Salary Data When You Negotiate?
Match the source to the offer, quote it with its date, and argue from the job’s scope rather than its title.
- Compare like with like: base offers against base figures, full packages against total pay.
- Check local job posts: Indeed’s figure is national; local posts show what nearby employers offer.
- Price the scope: several brands, a team or an ad budget support the upper percentiles.
- Bring results: the social media KPIs you moved, before and after.
- Name your sources: a dated, named figure is harder to wave away.
FAQ
How much do social media managers make an hour?
Most salary sites quote social media managers by the year. Hourly figures exist for nearby titles: Indeed’s job-posting averages are $21.13 an hour (Indeed, checked )Salary-site estimate for social media specialists and $21.64 an hour (Indeed, checked )Salary-site estimate for coordinators (updated 28 and 26 September 2026). BLS puts the May 2025 median for public relations specialists, the closest government occupation, at $35.94 an hour. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 national estimates, checked ; page date: May 2025 estimates, released 2026-05-15 There is no reliable public freelance rate.
Why is Salary.com’s figure so much higher than other sources?
Salary.com’s U.S. median, as of 1 October 2026, is $112,760 (Salary.com, checked )Salary-site estimate, against Payscale’s self-reported average base salary of $60,881 (Payscale, checked )Salary-site estimate (updated 22 June 2026) and Indeed’s job-posting average of $65,584 (Indeed, checked )Salary-site estimate (updated 28 September 2026). Salary.com calls its data employer-reported and HR-verified but doesn’t explain how it scopes the title, so read it alongside the others.
Which social media manager salary source is most reliable?
It depends on your question. BLS runs an employer survey but has no social media manager occupation, so its figures are proxies. Indeed shows pay advertised in job posts from the past 36 months, Payscale what its users report, and Glassdoor’s newest readable figure dates from April 2025. Compare several, then check current local job posts.
Is this social media manager salary data current?
Every figure here was checked on 3 October 2026. The newest BLS wage data are the May 2025 estimates, released on 15 May 2026. Source: BLS news release: Occupational Employment and Wages — May 2025 (USDL-26-0725), checked ; page date: 2026-05-15 Indeed last updated its social media manager figure on 28 September 2026, Payscale on 22 June 2026 and Salary.com on 1 October 2026. Glassdoor’s figure comes from an archived copy of its April 2025 update.