How Much Do Floral Designers Get Paid?

If you’re interested in starting your own floral design business, it’s important for you to have a general knowledge of industry salary averages. Depending on how much you’re looking to invest in the start-up process (buying new supplies, setting up a studio at home or renting an additional space elsewhere, etc.), this will help you determine how much you can expect to make back, on average, in your first year of business.

First of all, it’s important to remember that your entry level profit will be significantly smaller than the amount you can expect to make in the following years. In any new business venture, it takes some time to develop a name for yourself locally and establish a list of clients. Advertising your business and forming a recognizable brand for yourself will therefore be crucial to this anticipated growth within your first year.

Keeping active social media accounts with pretty pictures of your bouquets, workspace and design process is one helpful (and fun) way to spread the word about your work. It’s also important to make and distribute business cards as often as possible. If you’re financially able to, in the beginning, you might consider offering services to close friends at a discounted rate (note- best you ask them to keep that discounted rate private so that future buyers don’t demand it equally), so that people can start to see your great work as a form of advertisement. Be sure to give said friends a handful of your business cards to share at any event where your work will be showcased, especially if you can’t be there yourself.

Second, it’s important to remember that location is a leading driver in floral design salary discrepancies. Understandably (and similar to many other career salary patterns), florists who work in more metropolitan areas tend to make more money than those who work in smaller, rural areas. Not only is it easier to access a larger client base in urban areas, but the average price you can charge for your work is much higher in cities.

Generally, floral designers can expect to make around $20,000-$30,000 in profit during the first year that they launch. After becoming established, the increase you can anticipate will entirely depend on the number of clients you are able to garner and the area in which you work. In a smaller town, working on per project-based basis, a growing floral design company could make closer to $40,000 after a while in the business. In a more urban area like Brooklyn however, working on larger corporate projects, that number could be closer to $65,000.

Want to learn more? The New York Institute of Art and Design offers an online floral design course that can teach you how to become a floral designer. Request your free course catalog today!