Art Therapist's Salary (Based on an Art Therapist's Experience and Personal Research)

What do art therapists earn? Do they make good money?

I bet so many people are curious about this fact. Whether you’re a college student who’s just curious about this field or a teacher who want to switch careers, you might be wondering whether art therapists earn enough and whether this is a financially viable career path. Or, you may be a fresh graduate or an early career art therapist curious what is the average wage of an art therapist.

There are lots of places you can find information on this if you do a Google search, but I wanted to share the findings of my own personal online research, coming from the perspective of an art therapist in the U.S., AND I wanted to give you my first-hand experience of witnessing the ACTUAL wages and income that were offered to real art therapist positions when I was job searching as an art therapist in New York City, USA.

By the way, I’m a board certified art therapist who’s graduated from an art therapy master’s program in NYC, worked in New York, and also in Texas.

Continue reading to find out what I found!

Art Therapist’s Salary, Based on My Online Research

I looked through reputable places online to find this information out for you, so you don’t have to go scouring pages and pages of search results. (All findings were gathered on May, 2021 and is ONLY pertaining to the U.S. No other countries are taken into account).

I referred to this source in my previous blog post on the pros and cons of art therapist career, but Payscale.com showed that art therapists are earning around $46,200/year on average, based on about 300 salaries in 2021. I think it’s a bit important to break this down into phases of career - early, mid, and late career. Early career art therapists who have less than 1 year experience were earning $42,300/year, based on 27 salaries. And mid-career (with 5-9 years of experience) were earning $48,900. Those with more than 20 years of experience were earning an average of $54k.

From glassdoor.com, the average salary was $50k, which was based on 62 salaries anonymously submitted to their website by art therapists. The highest was at $68k, and lowest at $37k.

According to salary.com, the average salary was $41k and it said most salaries fall into the $37-47k range.

Now, let’s check the official records from the government - the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which collects data from professionals and workers in the U.S.

Well….actually, the one downfall of BLS data is that they don’t actually collect data on art therapists. Yeah, I know. It doesn’t make sense at all. So in reality, we don’t have any “official” government data on the salaries of art therapists. All that BLS showed us is data based on the category of “therapists, all other,” which found that the average salary was $55k in 2014. Know that this is NOT the salary of art therapists. Art therapists may be included in this data but other therapists are also in there as well.

So the sad truth is that no real, official data is collected about art therapists’ salaries at this point, in 2021 - which is around more than half a century since the art therapy field has been found and art therapists have been working in this career.

But, I do think that the anonymously submitted salaries on websites like Payscale or Glassdoor do show some idea of what art therapists may be earning these days. If you averaged out the three big website’s data, it turns out to be $45,700/year.

As a current art therapist, that figure sounds about right. And you’ll also see why in the next paragraphs.

Art Therapists’ Income Based On My Own Experience

Although you have these findings online, you might be curious what do art therapists themselves have to say about their salaries.

So here I am. Let me tell you what I know and have seen from my own experience as an art therapist who’ve searched for art therapist jobs, who’ve gotten those jobs, and who’ve been paid in those positions.

So the thing you have to keep in mind is that art therapist’s titles can be a mix of things. They might not be labeled as “art therapist,” but in actuality, they’re doing art therapy. So I think that’s one reason why it’s hard to collect data about art therapist salaries. And that is also why it’s important to hear from actual art therapists currently employed and working to hear what they’re doing and what they’re being paid. Because THAT is the real salary you might expect when you work.

When I was in New York City, which can be considered “the place” for art therapists to go to school and work in inside the U.S. (because there are relatively many options and job opportunities there), I’ve found that right out of school, I saw jobs ranging from $32k to $35k (that’s about $15-17 per hour). They were not “art therapist” jobs. They were what you could get if you just graduated with an art therapy master’s degree. There were practically no “art therapist” positions available for non-licensed, just graduated art therapist. That salary range hasn’t changed much these days, i.e., 2021.

Once I was able to actually get an art therapist job, I found they were in the range of $40k to 45k (around $19-$21 per hour, if you break it down to hourly). The highest salary I’ve seen that was offered and was appropriate to my level of experience was $60k, at a hospital. The highest I was offered per hour, for a fee-for-service position was $40 per hour (but of course, this is not your usual 35~40 hour per week kind of position).

And now, from what I have heard from fellow art therapists and colleagues, their numbers were quite similar as well. The highest I’ve heard from someone was around $80k, as an art therapist at a veteran’s hospital. (You do have to keep in mind that federal employees have a different pay grade system than in private settings). The lowest, around $30k.

There is more to the picture than just salaries and wages. To really understand the situation, you would need to know how many jobs are art therapists are doing (are they stringing together several part-time positions to earn a living?), what kind of jobs are they taking (is it fee for service, full-time, contract based, etc?), what work are they actually doing (are they doing case management and a little bit of art therapy on the side?), do they have certifications/licenses, etc.

My Thoughts about Income as an Art Therapist

As an art therapist, it can feel like the pay you get is not equal to the amount you’ve invested in your career and the amount/value of work you provide for clients.

Many art therapists feel that employers and hiring organizations do not recognize the value of art therapy work and what art therapists do. They might not offer salaries that actually match the value of the service. Many are non-profit organizations that might have tight budgets, or many don’t know that art therapists need master’s degree, board certification, and even state licenses to practice.

For some people, the average of $40 something thousand per year is good enough. For others, it’s not. Especially if you live in big cities and in urban settings where rent and cost of living is high, like NYC.

But you have to keep in mind that all this data and finding is about “employed work” - i.e., what you earn when you’re an employee. It does not represent art therapists who are self-employed and have their own business/practices - which, there are a lot. (Unfortunately there is no specific data on what they earn, from what I could find).

When you have your own business/practice, you have more freedom and flexibility in your work, including what you earn - especially if you’re on the Online Entrepreneur Art Therapist career path.

Although it is good to know what the going rate is in terms of what employers offer as a salary, this doesn’t mean you can’t negotiate, find higher paying positions yourself, or even be self-employed - which gives you more opportunities for higher income.

I hope that this was helpful to you. What specific challenges or questions do you have about income and making money as art therapists? Let me know in the comments!

P.S. If you are curious about how to go about the online entrepreneur path, it’s a path that incorporates nonclinical, “therapeutic art.” WIth this type of service, you can have a lot of freedom, flexibility, & creativity in what you offer.
If you would love to do therapeutic art and want to learn how to facilitate it or incorporate it in your work, then I’ve got the ✨perfect✨ resource for you. My Therapeutic Art Facilitation School course is THE place where you can learn the foundation of nonclinical, therapeutic art work. I teach you my step by step signature method of using therapeutic art to help people, even if you’re just starting (no artist or therapist background needed). Want to learn how to do this? Check out my therapeutic art course here.

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