If you’re job hunting for a role in customer support—or hiring for one—you need to know: how much money do customer support pros make?

It’s a loaded question with a lot of variation to the answer. But we’re diving in anyway.

In this guide, we cover everything you need to know:

• Customer support salary benchmarks
• The factors that impact salaries
• What hiring managers and job seekers should keep in mind
• Frequently asked questions

What Are Standard Customer Support Salaries in 2022?

Let’s start with the bottom line: the median worldwide salary for a customer support specialist is between $50,000–$55,000 per year.

That’s based on the most recent available data—from 2018—so we can expect salaries in 2022 to be a bit higher.

Now, depending on where you look, reported average and median salaries vary. That’s because a number of different factors affect customer support salaries, including:

• Location
• Industry
• Seniority and job titles
• Hourly vs. salary pay
• Demographic factors

Throughout the rest of this guide, we break down how each of those details impact salaries for customer support pros. Then we dig into the things both hiring managers and job seekers should keep in mind.

Customer Support Salaries by Location

Location can have a big impact on your earning potential. That breaks out in a few ways, including: by region, work environment, and whether you’re based in the U.S. or abroad.

Here are the high-level details:

• The location of both the customer support representative and the company impact salaries
• Regardless of region, support roles based in cities with a high cost of living come with higher salaries
• Location’s impact is second only to the type of role and seniority

By region

Customer support roles in North America boast the highest salaries in the world—no surprise there. The median salary for a customer support specialist in the region is $55,000.

What is surprising is that the median salary for customer support in the Middle East is also $55,000. Beyond that, Australia is close behind with a median annual salary of $49,000.

Numbers for all three regions are well above those across the rest of the globe. That includes Europe where the median salary is $39,000. Support specialists in Asia earned among the lowest salaries by region, with the median at $14,700.

Within each region, salaries vary widely based on the city and its typical cost of living. Within North America, salaries range from a high of $66,129 in Mountain View, California to a low of $24,900 in Orlando, Florida.

San Francisco, San Jose, New York City, and Seattle all average 10-35% higher than the median U.S. salary. Globally: Hong Kong, Sydney, London, and Paris also report higher salaries, with a median of $60,000.

United States vs. abroad

Salaries in the United States trend higher than similar roles abroad. By average, U.S.-based customer support specialists earn more than their counterparts in every other nation.

Salaries in both Australia and the Middle East are competitive with the U.S., but European salaries lag behind the U.S. by 41%. That’s a difference of $16,000 in a year.

With that said, areas abroad that have a higher cost of living—like London and Hong Kong—trend much closer to median salaries in the U.S.

Remote vs. in-office

It isn’t only geolocation that affects customer support salaries. Whether you work in an office or remotely matters, too. 

Help Scout’s most recent Customer Support Salary Study, found that “support professionals who work remotely some or all of the time have the highest average salaries.” Time will tell how the impact of remote vs. in-office work changes as more companies opt for hybrid and fully remote work setups.

Here’s one thing to keep in mind if you live in an area with a low cost of living: if you work remotely for a company based in a city with a higher cost of living, you may be able to earn higher pay than if you work for a local company.

Customer Support Salaries by Industry

Customer support pros can work in all kinds of industries, and your earning potential varies from one to the next. That’s largely due to:

• The level of demand for customer support in each industry
• Specialized skills or technical know-how needed
• Company size

The industries with the highest demand for customer support representatives today include: tech, retail, and e-commerce.

Tech

The tech industry is among the most common industries for customer support work, making up 19% of employment for the role. In other words: there’s high demand for customer support professionals in tech.

The salary you can earn working in customer support for a tech company reflects that demand. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, customer support representatives earn 16.9% higher salaries at “high-tech” companies vs. other industries.

Customer support specialists in “computer software and hardware” earn above average salaries according to Glassdoor’s data, too.

And that’s just customer support within a tech company. If you develop the skills to move into technical support, you can earn a much higher salary. Technical support engineers, for example, earn an average base salary of $65,691 per year.

Retail and e-commerce

Both the retail and e-commerce industries experience high demand for customer support and customer service roles. Retail is among the top five industries hiring for the role. It includes 8% of customer support representatives and 17% of the similar role of customer service specialist.

That demand means it may be easier to get started in retail or e-commerce. But it doesn’t translate to higher salaries like those in tech. Ecommerce customer service roles actually run below the overall median. Entry level roles in the U.S. average $37,370 annually.

Glassdoor data echoes that, with lower than average salaries reported for retail customer support workers.

But there’s less of a gap as you move up the career ladder in these industries. Ecommerce customer support managers, for example, average $85,460 and up.

Customer Support Salary by Seniority Level

Seniority and job title are the two most important factors determining salaries within customer support. 

Surprisingly, Help Scout notes—according to their study—tenure with a company had a small impact on earning potential. As you can see, pay does rise based on level of experience and tenure:

But it’s a negligible change—even for those with over 10 years with the company.

Entry-level

Years of experience in the support industry is a better predictor of salary gains than company tenure—up to a point.

Base pay for entry level customer support jobs falls between $37,000–$42,000 per year. That number rises to the median we shared above (about $55,000) after you gain a few years of experience.

You can make modest gains by moving between companies—since we know tenure doesn’t help you make more. But once you’ve worked in support for more than 3–5 years, additional experience doesn’t do much for your pay.

Manager

Substantial salary growth happens when you move up to management and higher roles. That’s where experience can really help you earn more, enabling you to move up the ladder into management.

As you can see, median salaries grow quickly once you get into management roles and above.

Base pay for Customer Success Managers—a mid-level support role—averages $69,725. 

Upper levels along the customer support career path include roles like Director of Customer Experience. The average base salary for that job is $122,663. Plus, higher level roles bring more potential to earn bonuses and commission on top of your salary.

Hourly vs. salaries

Whether you’re paid by the hour or based on an annual salary can also impact earnings in a big way.

The average hourly rate for an entry level customer support specialist ranges from $15–$18 per hour. If you work full-time, that’s between $31,200–$37,440 per year. By that measure, hourly support roles can yield a much lower annual paycheck than similar salaried roles.

And there’s more to it than the annual full-time math. Not all hourly roles are full-time, so you may not see the full annual pay. Plus, hourly rates also include freelance and contract support roles—many of which don’t include benefits like health insurance, PTO (paid time off), or retirement contributions.

How Gender, Race, and Other Factors Influence Customer Support Salaries

Your experience and the specifics of the job aren’t the only things that impact a customer support salary. We’ve seen progress in recent years, but wage gaps based on gender, race, and sexuality persist in many industries.

The customer support sphere isn’t immune to those gaps. As with most industries, straight white men earn the highest salaries. Women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ folks tend to earn less.

Let’s dig into how these factors influence earnings for customer support pros.

Gender

Women are well-represented in the customer support field. According to Help Scout’s survey, they make up “63% of those who do frontline support, 54% of those who manage and do some frontline support, 65% of managers, 54% of directors and other leaders.”

Representation isn’t an issue here.

Women even earn higher salaries than men during the entry level phase of their careers. But as seniority increases, that gender gap flips and widens.

You can see in the image above how the gap kicks into high gear as you pass 10 years of experience.

Overall, women average $50,000 while men average $52,000 annually. That makes for an average gap of $2,000 per year—which adds up.

Race

When it comes to race, the wage gap in customer support is much narrower than the overall wage gap in the U.S. But it still exists and broadly follows the same trend.

Again, representation isn’t a concern. The racial makeup of the customer support largely echoes that of the U.S. population.

Despite that, Black customer support reps regularly earn 1.5% less than their white counterparts in similar roles. Hispanic and Latino customer support pros fall in the middle, earning around 0.46% less than white workers.

Asian customer support customer support pros command the highest salaries.

Sexuality and gender identity

While we know wage gaps and employment discrimination against LGBTQ+ folks exists broadly, data specific to customer support is hard to come by.

Based on the data we’ve shared above, we can estimate that wage gaps among LGBTQ+ customer support representatives closely mirror overall trends.

So let’s take a look at those. According to Prudential’s report on the LGBT Financial Experience:

• Lesbian women earn an average of $5,855 less per year than straight women
• Gay men earn $26,533 less than straight men—a gap of nearly 32%
• Transgender women can experience a paycut of up to a third of their salary after transition

What Managers Looking to Hire Customer Support Reps Should Keep in Mind

Whether you’re hiring your first customer support rep or your hundredth, doesn’t matter. The job climate changes all the time, so it’s important to keep a few things in mind throughout the process.

Do you need a full-time employee?

Before you budget for benefits and start looking for a full-time customer support rep, it’s worth re-assessing your needs. Do you really need someone full-time?

The gig economy continues to grow. If you aren’t sure you need to hire full-time, a freelance or contract-based hire might make more sense. You’ll have more flexibility in budget and workload. Plus, you can always hire a full-timer if your needs grow.

U.S.-based support is more expensive

Support reps based in the United States command much higher salaries than those in other regions of the world. If—for whatever reason—you need to hire U.S.-based support, expect to pay more for those employees. Budget accordingly.

You may need to offer above average salaries

In any region, you may need to offer a salary above the median to be competitive. Here are a few indicators you should bump up customer support pay:

• You want agents to work from your office
• You’re based in an area with a high cost of living
• You’re hiring management
• You’re looking for specific skills (like technical knowledge or Spanish fluency)

What Customer Support Reps Seeking Jobs Should Keep in Mind

If you’re looking for a customer support job, all the salary data above may feel overwhelming. Below, we recap the main highlights to keep in mind as you job search and evaluate potential roles.

Demand and salary vary by location

Outside the level of a customer support role, location is the biggest factor affecting salary. There are a few ways you can use the knowledge to earn higher pay.

• Look for a job in areas where demand is high. That includes both industries (like tech) and locations. As you can see from the map below: Southern California, Seattle, Florida, and the Northeast boast high demand for customer support agents.

• Find companies based in places with a higher cost of living. If you can work remotely, seek out job opportunities with companies based in an area with a higher cost of living. These roles are likely to pay more than local companies.

Certain skills can help you earn more

There are some in-demand skills and experience that companies are willing to pay a premium for. Cultivating those skills can help up-level your earning potential.

High-paying and in-demand skills include:

• Technical knowledge
• Product support
• Foreign language fluency (particularly Spanish)
• Management skills

Chart a path into management to grow your salary

Moving into a customer support management role is the top way to grow your salary. Remember: while your salary will increase as you gain experience beyond entry level, there’s a tipping point. After a few years in the field, salary growth plateaus.

Taking on management and supervisory responsibilities will allow you to keep growing and earning more.

Frequently Asked Questions About Customer Support Salaries

Still have questions? Here are a few more answers to some common questions around customer support salaries.

What should I pay an entry level customer service representative?

Choosing a fair rate to pay an entry level customer service representative isn’t always straightforward. There’s a lot to consider.

• Do you pay an hourly rate or salary?
• Are you hiring full-time or working with contractors?
• Is the job remote or in-office?
• Where’s your company located? Where are customer service representatives located?

That said, we can share a few benchmarks to serve as a jumping off point:

• The average hourly rate for an entry level customer support specialist sits between $15–$18 per hour
• The average annual salary ranges from $37,000–$42,000 per year

What’s the job satisfaction for customer support representatives?

Job satisfaction across industries is tough to measure. Still, there’s data to support high satisfaction levels among customer support representatives.

According to information from Payscale, customer support reps are “highly satisfied” with their jobs. The website reports an overall satisfaction rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on ratings customer support representatives submitted.

Is $19 per hour for an entry-level help desk agent a good wage?

In short, yes.

The average rate for an entry level customer support agent falls between $15–$18 per hour. So $19 per hour is an above average wage.

However, if the job requires more than a year or two of experience or is located in an area with a high cost of living, you may be able to earn more with another company.

Have customer support salaries changed substantially in 2022?

We don’t have much data available yet on salary numbers in 2022. That said, rebounds of the U.S. and global economies plus ramped up competition for employees should drive up wages. So it’s reasonable to expect salaries will increase.