What account managers are paid in 2026, and why posted pay is down
More than half of US account manager postings state pay: 8,930 of 16,418 collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. Their coverage-adjusted median is $70,000, down 17.6% from the same window in 2025. This page gives the quartiles, pay by level and state, and the method.
$70,000
National Median
The median base salary in US account manager job postings is $70,000 a year, coverage-adjusted, for postings collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. That figure comes from the 8,930 of 16,418 postings that stated pay, a 54.4% disclosure rate, and the unadjusted median of the same postings is also $70,000.
These are base salaries as employers posted them. Account manager jobs that carry a sales target often add commission or a bonus on top, and none of that is in these figures: PayScope publishes no commission or on-target earnings estimate for this role. Posted base pay is 17.6% lower than in the same window of 2025, and senior-level postings state a median of $102,500 against $67,000 at entry.
How much does an account manager make?
The median account manager posting in the US offers a base salary of $70,000 a year, from postings collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. That works out to $33.65 an hour, $1,346 a week or $5,833 a month. The middle half of postings runs from $65,000 to $85,000 a year, or $31.25 to $40.87 an hour. The hourly figure is the annual median divided by 2,080 working hours, so it is a conversion and not a posted hourly rate.
| Measure | Annual | Hourly equivalent | Monthly equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25th percentile | $65,000 | $31.25 | $5,417 |
| Median | $70,000 | $33.65 | $5,833 |
| 75th percentile | $85,000 | $40.87 | $7,083 |
The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median annual wage for sales representatives of services, except advertising, insurance, financial services, and travel (SOC 41-3091) at $69,990, or $33.65 an hour, in its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025.
Account manager has no occupation code of its own, so 41-3091 is the closest BLS category and only an approximate fit. The two medians land $10 apart, but they count different people: BLS surveys the pay of everyone employed in that occupation, across all industries and all lengths of tenure, while this page reports the base pay employers advertised in 2026 postings.
The figures: what account manager postings state
As posted is the plain median of the 8,930 postings that stated pay. Coverage-adjusted re-weights them so each state counts in proportion to its share of all 16,418 collected postings, the silent ones included. For account managers that correction leaves the 25th percentile at $65,000 and the median at $70,000, and lifts the 75th percentile by $2,000, to $85,000.
| Measure | As posted | Coverage-adjusted |
|---|---|---|
| 25th percentile | $65,000 | $65,000 |
| Median | $70,000 | $70,000 |
| 75th percentile | $83,000 | $85,000 |
Base pay, annualized, from 8,930 US job postings that stated pay, collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. Commission, bonus and on-target earnings excluded.
Account manager pay by state runs from $65,000 to $87,750
44 states and the District of Columbia have at least 30 account manager postings that stated pay. The table shows the 12 with the most.
| State | Postings with pay | Median | Middle half (p25 to p75) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 1,070 | $70,000 | $65,000 to $77,500 |
| Florida | 924 | $68,100 | $65,000 to $70,000 |
| New York | 675 | $80,000 | $69,250 to $105,000 |
| California | 664 | $87,750 | $72,500 to $110,000 |
| Illinois | 473 | $70,000 | $65,000 to $87,500 |
| Georgia | 469 | $70,000 | $65,000 to $77,500 |
| New Jersey | 355 | $70,000 | $65,000 to $77,500 |
| South Carolina | 228 | $65,000 | $65,000 to $70,000 |
| Pennsylvania | 225 | $67,500 | $55,000 to $76,900 |
| Alabama | 212 | $70,000 | $65,000 to $70,000 |
| Massachusetts | 197 | $75,000 | $65,000 to $100,000 |
| North Carolina | 193 | $70,000 | $57,500 to $83,000 |
Base pay, from US job postings collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. States with at least 30 postings that stated pay; the 12 with the most such postings are shown.
Among the 12 listed states, California has the highest median at $87,750 and South Carolina the lowest at $65,000, a gap of $22,750. Outside California, New York ($80,000) and Massachusetts ($75,000), the other nine medians all fall between $65,000 and $70,000, so across most of the table the state makes little difference. Florida, South Carolina and Alabama have the narrowest middle half, $65,000 to $70,000.
54.4% of account manager postings state pay
8,930 of the 16,418 collected postings carried a usable annual figure. 7,481 gave no pay information, and 7 were unusable: 4 quoted a currency other than US dollars and 3 fell outside the collection window. Not one of the 1,748 postings under three insurance titles states pay: account manager- commercial insurance (1,376 postings), its SBU variant (242) and account manager- employee benefits (130). Those three titles add nothing to the figures on this page.
Nationally, disclosed postings lean toward the thirteen states with pay-transparency laws in force, where 53.9% of postings state pay against 33.8% elsewhere and pay runs about 10% higher. Account manager disclosure does not follow that split neatly.
California states pay on 47.7% of its postings, the lowest of the 12 states in the table and below Texas at 57.1% and Florida at 53.8%. New York (66.6%), Illinois (66.7%) and New Jersey (68.1%) state it more often, and Alabama is highest at 78.8%. California pays the most and is under-represented among disclosing postings, which fits the direction of the correction: re-weighting by state raises the 75th percentile and leaves the median where it was.
The minority of postings that give no number still say something. What a DOE listing actually means covers the phrasings employers use instead of a figure.
Posted pay is down 17.6% from a year ago
The 2025 median for the same eight titles, over the same stretch of the year, was $85,000 on 12,211 postings that stated pay. The 2026 median is $70,000 on 8,930. In round numbers, the median posted base fell from $85K to $70K. That 17.6% drop is the basis for the saturated label on this page.
Posting counts are not compared across years, because collection volume varies too much to read as a hiring trend. The export does not break the 2025 median down by title or level, so it cannot say whether employers cut the base they offer for the same job or whether the 2026 postings lean more toward lower-paid titles such as account manager associate. Either would produce a drop of this kind, and this page does not pick between them.
Pay by level, on the postings that state one
The ladder below is built on the 897 postings that state a level and a usable figure. The other 8,033 usable postings state none, and their median of $70,000 is the role median exactly, so the headline figure on this page is mostly them.
| Level | Postings with pay | 25th percentile | Median | 75th percentile | Years in role |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | 205 | $55,000 | $67,000 | $76,400 | 1 to 2 years |
| Mid | 119 | $65,000 | $77,000 | $100,000 | 2 to 5 years |
| Senior | 546 | $86,800 | $102,500 | $131,500 | 4 to 7 years |
A fourth rung, Lead, sits on 27 postings, under the 30-posting floor PayScope uses for a publishable median, so it is not shown. Mid rests on the fewest postings of the three, 119, and its middle half spans $35,000, so its 75th percentile of $100,000 sits above the senior 25th percentile of $86,800. The stated experience ranges overlap too, 2 to 5 years at mid and 4 to 7 at senior. Employers draw the line between those two rungs in different places, and the biggest step in the table is from mid to senior, $25,500 at the median.
Key account manager postings pay more than the senior rung
The posted title moves pay as much as the level does. Key account manager postings state a median base of $125,000 on 456 postings with pay, above the senior rung's $102,500, while account manager associate postings sit at $55,000 on 437, with a middle half of only $55,000 to $57,500. Client manager ($82,500 on 97) and customer account manager ($100,000 on 39) fall between them. The plain account manager title supplies 7,901 of the 8,930 disclosing postings, which is why the role median matches its $70,000.
What account managers do, and a 2.7% outlook for the closest BLS occupation
An account manager looks after a company's existing customers: answering their questions, fixing problems after a sale and finding out what they need next. Account manager has no occupation of its own in O*NET OnLine, so the tasks below come from its closest match, sales representatives of services (41-3091).
- Support clients after a sale or contract signing and resolve their problems
- Answer questions about services, prices, availability and credit terms
- Prepare sales presentations and proposals
- Draw up the forms and agreements that complete a sale
- Contact prospective and existing customers to learn what they need
- Negotiate prices and terms
O*NET lists active listening, speaking, reading comprehension, active learning, critical thinking and writing as the top skills for the occupation. BLS projects employment of sales representatives of services, except advertising, insurance, financial services, and travel to change by 2.7% from 2025 to 2035, with about 115,700 openings a year (Employment Projections, Table 1.2). Growth adds about 33,900 jobs over the decade to a base of 1,272,700 jobs in 2025, so nearly all of those yearly openings come from replacing workers who leave the occupation or retire.
Account manager pay against five related roles
Medians for five neighboring roles, each from its own PayScope salary guide.
| Role | Median | Data |
|---|---|---|
| Technical sales | $140,000 | Postings through Aug 31, 2026 |
| Customer success manager | $97,000 | Postings through Aug 31, 2026 |
| Executive assistant | $79,934 | Postings through Aug 31, 2026 |
| Insurance claims adjuster | $61,876 | Postings through Aug 31, 2026 |
| Customer service lead | $65,000 | March 2026 dataset |
Postings titled account manager, key account manager, customer account manager, client manager and account manager associate all roll into this page, along with the commercial insurance and employee benefits account manager titles.
How these figures were produced
The source is PayScope's own collection of US job postings, deduplicated by posting id. The figures are dated August 31, 2026, the last fully collected month, and the collection query ran to early September, so a few September postings are included. 16,418 postings matched the role and 8,930 stated a usable annual pay figure; 7,481 stated none, and 7 were unusable because 4 were not in US dollars and 3 fell outside the window. The coverage adjustment re-weights each state to its share of all collected postings, which for this role leaves the median at $70,000 and lifts the 75th percentile by $2,000.
Eight posted titles map to the role: account manager, key account manager, customer account manager, client manager, account manager associate, account manager- commercial insurance, account manager- commercial insurance- sbu and account manager- employee benefits. The last three contribute 1,748 postings and no pay figures. Every figure is base pay as the employer wrote it, with commission, bonuses, on-target earnings, overtime and equity excluded. The figures are regenerated monthly on this method.
Frequently asked questions
How much do account managers get paid?
The median base salary for an account manager in the US is $70,000 a year, coverage-adjusted, from 8,930 job postings that stated pay between January 1 and August 31, 2026. The middle half of those postings runs from $65,000 to $85,000. Commission and bonus are excluded.
How much does an account manager make per hour?
$33.65 an hour, which is the $70,000 annual median divided by 2,080 working hours, from US postings collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. It is a conversion of the annual figure and not a posted hourly rate. The middle half of postings works out to $31.25 to $40.87 an hour.
What is the entry-level account manager salary?
Entry-level account manager postings state a median base of $67,000, on 205 US postings that named the level and stated pay between January 1 and August 31, 2026. The middle half runs from $55,000 to $76,400, and the experience stated is 1 to 2 years. Postings titled account manager associate sit lower and tighter, at a $55,000 median on 437 postings.
How much does a senior account manager make?
Senior account manager postings state a median base of $102,500, on 546 US postings that named the level and stated pay between January 1 and August 31, 2026. The middle half runs from $86,800 to $131,500, with 4 to 7 years of experience stated. That is $32,500 above the $70,000 median for the role as a whole.
Is an account manager a high position?
It depends on the title and the level. In US postings collected January 1 to August 31, 2026, account manager associate has a median base of $55,000, the plain account manager title $70,000, senior-level postings $102,500 and key account manager $125,000. The role as a whole sits at $70,000, close to the $69,990 BLS median for the nearest occupation in May 2025.
Do these account manager salary figures include commission?
No. Every figure here is base pay as the employer posted it, from US postings collected January 1 to August 31, 2026, with commission, bonuses, on-target earnings and equity excluded. Account manager jobs with a sales target often pay commission on top, so total earnings can sit above the $70,000 median base, and PayScope publishes no estimate of that variable pay.
What is the account manager salary in California and Texas?
California account manager postings state a median base of $87,750 on 664 postings with pay, and Texas postings $70,000 on 1,070, both collected January 1 to August 31, 2026. California has the highest median of the 12 states with the most disclosing postings. Its middle half runs from $72,500 to $110,000, against $65,000 to $77,500 in Texas.
What is the role of an account manager?
An account manager looks after a company's customers once a sale is made: resolving their problems, answering questions on services, prices and terms, preparing proposals, and finding out what they need next. Those are the core tasks O*NET OnLine lists for sales representatives of services (41-3091), the closest occupation to the role. US postings for account managers state a median base of $70,000 for January 1 to August 31, 2026.