How much a graphic designer makes in Mexico

Having a reference of how much a Graphic Designer makes in Mexico is essential If you want to embark on a career in Graphic Design there. It can also be very useful if you are already a designer in Mexico, but you are not sure if you are being paid what you are entitled to. For this I have consulted multiple sources such as Indeed, Glassdoor or Salary Explorer.

The average salary of a graphic designer in Mexico is 18,000 – 20,100 pesos per month, the average salary of a trainee is around $7,558 – $9,240 /month and the average salary of a good senior designer is $31,900 – $40,000 /month.

Graphic Design is incorporated into a wide variety of industries, sectors and projects, so your salary can vary greatly depending on whether your speciality is UX, web design, editorial design, etc. To this you have to add other factors such as your years of professional experience, the quality of your portfolio or whether you work for a company or freelance, as I will show you below.

The first salary of a graphic designer fresh out of an internship is almost 3 times higher than the Mexican minimum wage of $3,123.2 /month, according to the newspaper Expansión, or 185.56 pesos per day in the Northern Border and 123.22 pesos per day in the rest of the country, as published by the Mexican Government.

The following table shows an estimate of the monthly and annual salary – in 12 payments – that you can expect as a designer based on your experience.

Is there a gender pay gap?

Women graphic designers earn around 16% less than men, according to a survey by Salary Explorer. In other professions, Mexican women earn up to 14% less on average.

Is it a good salary to be a graphic designer?

During the first few years, being financially independent is difficult if you don’t supplement your graphic designer salary with freelance work or winning prizes in contests. But as we will see below, the situation can improve in a short time.

According to INEGI, the average monthly expenditure per household in Mexico is $10,637/month, $31,913/quarter or $127,652 pesos per year.

This means that junior designers with less than 2 years of experience have to tighten their belts, as they do not usually earn more than $10,500/month ($126,000/year). This situation is similar to that of other graphic designers in other countries we have analysed, such as Argentina, Peru or Spain, but the situation improves in the following years.

A designer’s salary in Mexico increases approximately 10% every 18 months.

After the first two years, a professional graphic designer already earns 4.48 times more than the minimum wage and 33% more than the average annual household expenditure, and in the following years this difference increases.

How much does a junior graphic designer earn

Between 0 and 2 years of experience

As we have seen above, in their first two years, a graphic designer in Mexico typically does not exceed $10,500/month, but companies often offer meal checks and other amenities from the beginning that make this period somewhat more bearable.

Between 2 and 5 years

Between 2 and 5 years of experience, your salary can increase by as much as 34% more, reaching $14,000/month or $168,000/year. Generally, this salary increase is usually due to the designer receiving an offer from another agency, studio, or company.

Between 5 and 10 years

After the first 5 years, the salary often increases by 48% more, and can reach $20,700/month or $248,000/year in 12 payments, which is almost double the average monthly expenditure per household. During this period, there are also designers who already receive performance bonuses and other extras that add up to 4% more to their salary.

After 10 years of experience, your salary should be more than double the salary at which you started working.

These bonuses are received depending on whether the designer or the company meets its objectives -usually on an annual basis- and their value depends on what has been previously negotiated between both parties.

As for the extras, they can be as diverse as discounts on childcare, gym subscriptions, health insurance or even company shares.

How much does a good senior graphic designer earn?

Although there is no clear line that defines a senior graphic designer, they are usually professionals with more than 10 or more years of experience. Senior designers represent approximately 25% of all graphic designers.

With 10 to 15 years of experience

After 10 years, on average you can expect an increase of more than 22% over the previous period, reaching $ 27,500 /month or $ 330,000 /year in 12 payments, although much depends on the company you work for and your career.

Extras and bonuses negotiated in this period also tend to be proportionally higher, but in addition, many professionals receive paid offers to teach classes and courses outside their working hours.

More than 20 years of experience

The salary of a senior graphic designer would be more than 41% above the average salary in Mexico ($156,999 /year) and 2.79 times above the average annual family expense ($127,652 /year), reaching values of $357,000 /year according to the sources consulted.

Designers with more than 20 years of experience and above all, a good portfolio and a good reputation in the industry, can reach salaries of $29,800 /month, plus extras, bonuses and professional offers unrelated to their work.

How much does a freelance graphic designer earn

Freelance graphic designers have different ways of billing their work. They may even bill differently to different clients to accommodate their requests.

For example, sometimes they may bill by the hour, other times by the piece or project and sometimes for long periods of time such as a week or a month, in which they usually move to the offices of an agency, client, or design studio (if they do not work remotely).

In any case, if you decide to go freelance it is important that you take into account all the costs you have and the profit you want to get, when determining your prices.

Billing by the hour

This type of billing is increasingly out of use due to the fact that clients do not often accept it. There are designers who are very fast, but there are also those who require much more time to execute a job effectively.

The problem is that clients do not know a priori what each one is like, and they do not want to risk the project costs skyrocketing because the designer needs more time than expected.

If you want to have a reference of the cost per hour that you can earn, you can calculate it from what a graphic designer of your experience earns in a month and divide it by the number of working hours of the month.

For example, designers with 4 years of experience, could take as a starting point the 87.5 pesos per hour that they would earn based on the $14,000 /month salary that corresponds to someone of their experience.

Then they could calculate how much he should add for the expenses of their activity, the desired profit and the fact that they don’t receive 12 payments per year.

Billing by time periods

To bill for periods of time, it’s practical to take as a starting point the monthly salary of a graphic designer with your same level of experience and determine a price for the contracted days.

For example, if you have 9 years of experience, and you are asked to work in a studio for 16 days, you would calculate the monthly salary of a designer with this experience ($20,700 /month) and divide it by the number of days worked per month (20).

Then multiply the result ($1,035) by the number of days you are going to work (16). The result would be $16,560 for 16 days, but we should also apply the calculation of benefits, activity expenses, etc. to this value.

Invoice by piece or by project

You can determine your price per piece or per project in different ways. You can choose to base it on the time it takes you to execute the project or part and the costs it may incur, or you can choose to set a price based on the value of the part to the customer.

In the first case, it’s easy to make the calculations, as we have done in the previous examples. Keep in mind that it isn’t easy to estimate how long it takes to complete a project, so consider adding a margin of error in your calculations of 15% or even 30%, if the cost to the customer does not rise excessively.

In case of billing for the value of the project for the client, you can obtain higher profits, but you should still calculate that this value covers the expenses and the time you are going to invest in the project.

The prices you set for your pieces will always be judged by the client based on your portfolio, your experience, and the confidence you convey to your client. So the same price can be expensive or economical for a client depending on who presents the budget.