Nurse Practitioner Salaries and How to Negotiate Them

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Nurse practitioners spend years in school to get the medical know-how they need to enter the healthcare field. But when you’re an NP starting a new job, there’s one more piece of homework you must do: your salary research. Becoming an NP can be a lucrative career move—over the past decade, nurse practitioner salaries have risen significantly faster than inflation—but only if you know what you’re worth and how to negotiate for it. 

Nurse Practitioner Salary by Specialty

Luckily, Health eCareers surveys thousands of nurse practitioners and other healthcare professionals every year. According to Health eCareer’s 2018-2019 Healthcare Salary Guide, the average nurse practitioner salary in the United States is $105,000. Of course that amount varies by specialty. For instance, nurse practitioners specializing in emergency medicine make around $122,400 a year, while family medicine NPs report an annual salary of only $100,000 per year.

Nurse Practitioner Salary by State

Nurse practitioner salaries also range based on your location. For example, NPs make an average annual salary of $121,000 in California, while those in Idaho make decidedly less at an average $99,840 per year. 

Years of Experience, Gender Also Affect NP Salary

Nurse practitioner salaries also vary by experience (NPs with 3–5 years of experience make an average of $96,636 a year, while those with more than 15 years in the field make an average of $103,124 a year) and even by gender (in 2016, male NPs made an average of $113,273, while female NPs made significantly less at an average $99,156.

To find out more about how much NPs make in your specialty and state (and average salaries by years of experience), visit our Healthcare Salary Center and use our interactive Healthcare Salary Calculator. 

Why Negotiate Your Nurse Practitioner Salary?

By conducting this salary research before you begin negotiating, you’ll have a better sense of the high, median, and low salaries for someone with your same credentials. This brings us to the importance of negotiating your salary. Each negotiation, no matter how small, will impact the next compensation survey and aid the following generation in receiving fair wages.

Linda Babcock, author of Women Don’t Ask, found that only 7 percent of women attempt to negotiate their salary compared with 57 percent of men, resulting in a gender salary gap. As outlined above, this pay gap includes nurse practitioners, with male NPs making approximately 13 percent more than their female counterparts. With 90 percent of nurse practitioners being women, it’s vital that we learn how to effectively negotiate our salaries, not just for our own sake, but for the sake of future generations whose salaries will be based on market averages.

Worried that negotiating your starting salary won’t play well with your potential employer? Don’t be. Studies suggest that 80 percent of companies expect salary negotiations and leave themselves wiggle room in their first offer. The worst thing a nurse practitioner can do is assume that his or her salary is non-negotiable, and not even try.

How to Negotiate Your Nurse Practitioner Salary

That said, don’t start your interview by asking about salary. Instead, focus on making a good impression on your hiring manager. Attempt to build an authentic rapport. Throughout the process, point out what makes you unique and what extra value you offer. Talk about how you can contribute to the organization from both a macro and micro level. 

If the employer makes an offer, make sure to look at the entire offer, not just base salary. Many organizations that hire nurse practitioners offer a continuing education stipend—usually around $1,000 to $4,000 annually. If the employer cannot negotiate salary, maybe they can negotiate this stipend. Some employers will negotiate paid time off or flexible hours. Others may cover your professional organization dues, licensure renewal fees, and academic journal subscriptions. 

Finally, have everything you discuss put in writing. Most organizations will do this for you automatically, and it should be a red flag if they balk at your request. Throughout the entire process of negotiation, the employer should treat you with respect and professionalism. In the end, most employers expect you to negotiate, so they offer you slightly less than they really can. During the initial stages of negotiation, never reveal how much you will accept. Experts suggest that not negotiating your salary can actually cost $500,000 to $1 million over a person’s career. With that much money on the line, it never hurts to ask.

Make sure to visit our Nurse Practitioner Career Center and browse our Nurse Practitioner Jobs.