--- title: Here’s How Much Freelancing Pays Now — It’s More Than a Typical 9-to-5 Job description: America's burgeoning population of freelance writers, marketers and illustrators is a well paid one, according to a study from Payoneer. authors: - name: Kristen Bahler role: Managing Editor url: https://money.com/author/kristen-bahler/ bio: Kristen Bahler has spent more than a decade turning culture, work and consumer spending trends into conversation-driving stories. Today, she leads Money's sponsored content channel and reader-favorite franchises like Best Places to Live and Best Places to Travel. education: Northeastern University, MA Journalism at_money_since: 2016 articles: 52 covers: - Career Advice - Banking - Business - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristen-bahler/ published: '2017-12-07T18:30:11.000Z' modified: '2024-04-17T07:22:52.000Z' section: Career Advice tags: - freelance - freelance income - freelance jobs - freelancing - Gig Economy - how to make more money word_count: 425 canonical: https://money.com/how-much-freelancers-earn/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![171106-freelancer-at-home](https://img.money.com/2017/12/gettyimages-571492555.jpg) Thinking about freelancing? Turns out, it pays great. Freelancers in the U.S. make an average of $31 an hour, which comes out to [17% more](https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000003) than the typical full-time employed worker, according to a survey from Payoneer. The digital payment company polled about 1,000 freelancers in a range of finance, tech, and creative roles, and found that the [burgeoning population](https://money.com/new-york-freelancer-pay-law/?iid=sr-link4) of gig workers in the U.S. is a well paid one, pretty much across the board. Compared to the rest of the world, freelancing in the U.S. is particularly lucrative. In a larger [survey](https://www.payoneer.com/downloads/freelancer-income-report-2018.pdf) published in October, Payoneer found that, globally, average freelancer pay is $19 — and more than half of the 21,000 freelancers polled (57%) charge under $15 an hour for their work. In the U.S., the average freelance rate outpaces a traditional 9 to 5 by a long shot. As of October 2017, median weekly earnings for full time U.S. workers was just shy of $45,000 a year, [according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf) For freelancers, $31 an hour works out to about $64,000. So what are these great gigs? It's [not driving for Uber](https://money.com/uber-drivers-really-make-per-hour/). Payoneer’s survey drew from a pool of freelancers in traditional “desk jobs" like writing, design, and marketing work, as opposed to newer gig work like ride sharing. Other fields that are providing lucrative freelance opportunities include finance and human resources, IT and programming, as well as engineering and legal work. A third of the respondents offer a range of services, like administrative, content and design work, rather than specializing in one field. There are some caveats, of course. Female respondents to Payoneer’s poll made an average of $27 an hour, compared to $33 an hour for males. Environment is another factor: Freelancers who work from home make an average of $31.67 an hour, compared to $28 for people who set up shop in a [co-working space,](https://money.com/coworking-why-it-works/) and $34 for those who work out of a private office. Payoneer's survey didn't include a breakdown of rates for each industry, but the high overall average should come as a vote of confidence to prospective freelancers — regardless of gender, or laptop location, it supports existing research that the gig economy is [here to stay](https://www.recode.net/2017/5/25/15690106/gig-on-demand-economy-workers-doubling-uber). By 2021, according to [one study](http://investors.intuit.com/Press-Releases/Press-Release-Details/2017/Intuit-Study-On-Demand-Economy-Helps-Reduce-Income-Volatility-Build-Economic-Security/default.aspx) from Intuit and Emergent Research, the number of freelancers in the U.S. will double to 9.2 million. “Freelancing is a growing part of how the American worker works,” says Payoneer CEO Scott Galit. "It cuts across industry types, ages, education level. The trend is more freelancing.” ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/how-much-freelancers-earn/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Career Advice", "item": "https://money.com/career-advice/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Freelancing", "item": "https://money.com/freelancing/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Here’s How Much Freelancing Pays Now — It’s More Than a Typical 9-to-5 Job" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/how-much-freelancers-earn/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/how-much-freelancers-earn/", "name": "Here’s How Much Freelancing Pays Now — It’s More Than a Typical 9-to-5 Job", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2017-12-07T18:30:11.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/how-much-freelancers-earn/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/how-much-freelancers-earn/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-17T07:22:52.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Here’s How Much Freelancing Pays Now — It’s More Than a Typical 9-to-5 Job", "articleSection": "Career Advice", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2017/12/gettyimages-571492555.jpg", "width": 3439, "height": 2292, "caption": "171106-freelancer-at-home" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Kristen Bahler", "url": "https://money.com/author/kristen-bahler/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/kristen-bahler/#author", "description": "Kristen Bahler has spent more than a decade turning culture, work and consumer spending trends into conversation-driving stories. 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