Remote Work Salaries: How much money can you make working remotely?

Instagrammers sell the digital nomad lifestyle to those who dream of escaping the 9-5 to work remotely while traveling the world. Although the digital nomad lifestyle looks glamorous, many people wonder what digital nomad salaries are and how much money remote jobs pay.

Wondering how much money you can earn as a remote worker is a fair question.

I’m going to do my best to answer this question because I always hated the response “it depends”. The reality is that how much money you make as a digital nomad depends on many factors. However, I’m going to outline what factors you can consider to help you gauge how much you can expect to earn as a digital nomad.

Remote Workers and Digital Nomads Have Real Jobs

The first thing to understand is that digital nomads aren’t backpackers taking on random jobs to survive. Digital Nomads have real, legitimate jobs. How digital nomads make money online is often by working remotely for a distributed team, freelancing, or being entrepreneurs. 

That being said, any digital nomad who has a remote job can expect to earn the same as they would if they were in a 9-5 cubicle job. For example, if you’re a social media manager at a brick-and-mortar agency and earn $55,000/ year, there’s no reason you could expect to earn any less working remotely. Working remotely is not a privilege; it’s a smarter way to work, and remote teams understand this. It saves them money by not having to pay for overhead costs like office space, and it allows their teams to be more productive because they can work when and where they’re most productive.

As a remote worker, it becomes more about the value you add, rather than office politics.

Remote Work Salary Stats

Let’s look at the hard stats on how much money digital nomads and remote workers make. According to a report done collaboratively with FlexJobs and Global Workplace Analytics, the average annual income for most remote workers is $4,000 higher than that of non-telecommuters.

Another FlexJobs report indicates, “18% [of remote workers] report making six figures or more and 22% make between $50,000 and $99,999.“

Needless to say, there is money to be made as a digital nomad. The only time I see people getting paid less than what they should is when they’re looking in the wrong places for a remote job, or they don’t realize their worth and are undervaluing themselves.

Want to make sure you’re applying in the right places? Check out the 10 best websites to find a remote job.

Online Salary Report Generator

Since digital nomads make comparable salaries to those in the 9-5, we can also explore some online tools that provide salary benchmarks for different career paths. The great thing about these online tools is that they consider more factors than just the role itself, self as years of experience.

PayScale

PayScale is a popular online tool that generates a salary report of how much you can expect to earn based on a series of questions. The questions asked include the role you’re considering, how many years of experience you have, your highest level of education completed, any additional certifications, etc. 

You do need to enter a location for this, so I would suggest you just enter your current location. That being said, to translate location into a remote work equivalent, I would suggest choosing a state that has “mid-range” salaries. For example, salaries in New York and California tend to skew higher because of the high cost of living so if you enter that as your location, you might get inflated salary results (unless you work remotely for a remote company based in New York or California).

Once you complete the questionnaire, PayScale will generate a customized report for you that outlines:

• Market salary range 

• Bonuses

• Your market worth over time

• Pay by experience level and gender 

• Recommendations of similar roles and how in-demand each role is 

Here is a sample report I did for a copywriter, 26 years old, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Here you can see the median salary for a copywriter is $46,000/year, along with the market range.

Then, the PayScale report shows similar roles and how in-demand each role is, which can help you gauge what remote career path to pursue.

Dice

Dice is another great online tool that provides salary predictions. Dice requires less information to generate your report. You need to enter the role, location, and years of experience. Again, to determine a remote work equivalent for location, I would suggest entering your current city or a city that would offer a mid-range salary. Again, places like New York and California tend to pay higher because of the high cost of living, which means if you enter either of those places, you may get skewed results.

Here’s a sample report I did for a marketing manager in Toronto, Canada, with 2 years’ experience. What I like about Dice is that they show how much you can expect your salary to increase depending on the various skills that you can add to your profile. 

Determine Your Future Career Path

Dice also has a career paths page, which I love. Again, you enter the same information as before, such as role, location, and years of experience, and then you can generate a career path report. For the report, you can select:

• Most common transition

• Most in demand

• Salary increase 

Your career path report will show you different roles you could transition to. Your report will include: 

• Salary prediction

• Top 5 skills required 

• Other similar roles you could consider 

Here’s an example of a career path report I did for a marketing manager in Vancouver with 2 years’ experience.

Paysa

Paysa also generates salary reports to determine how much you could expect to learn in a certain role. For this report, it asks you to enter a company, job title, and location. However, you can still get a full report just by entering a role. The Paysa salary report will include:

• Average compensation

• A list of different companies that are hiring for that role and what they’re paying

• Income variants based on location

• Common skills required for the job (this is a great way to see how you stack up against the competition)

• Related job titles

Here is an example of a salary report for a “graphic designer”. What I love about this report is that this particular report is “data based on 251K profiles.”

The skills section is also quite detailed and provides a lot of insight. It includes information such as, “47% of graphic designers have 0 to 2 years of experience. 73% of applicants have a Bachelor's Degree.” It also includes other skills graphic designers have, such as the percentage of graphic designers who know how to use Illustrator or Photoshop. It also includes the type of design, such as what percent of graphic designers do “logo design” or “brochures”.

Salaries at Remote Companies 

The online salary report tools are a great starting point to get an idea of how much you could expect to earn as a remote worker. However, it’s also good to look at what remote companies are paying their employees. Although not all remote companies include how much they offer for salaries, these companies do:

Buffer

Buffer, a popular remote company, posts online access to all their employees’ salaries. At the time of writing this, the lowest salary appears to be $65,000 USD/ year, the average salary appears to be $85,000/ year, and many employees seem to be making over $100,000 USD/ year. Here are some screenshots from Buffer’s employee salaries:

Toggl

Toggl is an online time tracking tool that also posts salaries with its open job postings. As of writing this, some salaries include: 

• Backend Developer - €50,000 annually (approx. $64,000 USD)

• PPC Specialist - €45,000 annually (approx. $58,000 USD)

• Product Designer - €48,000 annually (approx. $62,000 USD)

Benchmarking Your Remote Salary Based on Your Current Salary

If you’re considering staying in the same industry/space as your 9-5 but just want to do it remotely, you can expect to make a similar salary. You shouldn’t expect a pay cut just because you’re going remote. Remember, remote work isn’t a privilege, it’s a smarter way for companies to do business. 

Want to know what remote work is really worth for you? Use the Free Go Remote Calculator to estimate how much time, money, and freedom you could gain by going remote.

Remote Work is About Adding Value (Not Office Politics)

In the remote working world, it’s about how much value you add to a company, not office politics. If you can show your value and add value to a company, you will be paid accordingly.

Creating Your Own Remote Career Path

Wondering how to translate your current skills into a well-paying remote career? Download the FREE Remote Career Playbook to learn the exact 6-step system I use (and teach) to help people go remote with clarity and confidence.