Aesthetic nursing is made to look extremely glamorous on social media. It all seems like rainbows and butterflies and WHY THE HECK would you not want this to be your career?! But what about the aesthetic nurse salary? Is it comparable to what you make at the bedside? Will you need to take a pay cut? Or can it be insanely lucrative?
In this blog post I’m going to go over my OWN aesthetic nurse salary, with real transparent numbers.
Pay Structure
There are a variety of ways an aesthetic nurse might be paid:
- hourly
- commission
- hourly + commission
- hourly + potential bonuses
Depending on the type of environment, the pay structure may differ. I go into a little more detail about this in this blog post here: [AESTHETIC VS. BEDSIDE NURSING]. And also in a YouTube video that you can watch HERE. But in my own experience, I started off on an hourly pay structure.
Knowing what I know now, this is what I recommend for anyone starting in this field. Why? Because you don’t have any clients. Nobody knows about you. And you might not be good at what you do yet.
I know that sounds super harsh but it’s true. You’re going to want some reliable income while you’re training, learning, and building clientele. Once you have your skills down pat, a good social media presence, and a little demand to get in your chair…that’s when you’ll want to consider another pay structure.
You may not have any say in this whatsoever, but I’ve been very lucky to have a boss that is looking out for my best interest.
So I began my new career in April of 2022. I remained an hourly wage employee until September 2022. At that point my boss had a conversation with me, telling me it would be in my best interest to switch to a commission based pay structure. She told me that I’d make substantially more working the same number of hours, or even less.
Coming from the hospital, where everything is predictable and stable, this was a little terrifying to consider. My paycheck would directly reflect my work output. But knowing myself, I said yes. I love competition, mostly against myself. I love having goals to work toward. So I trusted her and we made the switch.
I’ll be sharing actual numbers in this post a little later, but spoiler alert: she was right.
Hours Worked
Now, when considering and aesthetic nurse salary versus my salary as a bedside nurse; it’s important to know that I have never worked as many hours as I did in the hospital. I was working 3 12hr shifts per week at my hospital job. Which is 72 hours per pay period. In my aesthetic job, as an hourly worker I never worked more than 55-60 hours in two weeks. This was by choice.
My mental health had gravely suffered after two years on a covid-19 unit, and I was so ready to work LESS. I was switching to a career that excited me and I was ready to spend more time at home.
Right now as I’m typing this post, I work 24 hours per week. I work 4 6hr shifts, and that’s it. It’s glorious. Could I work more? Yes. Will my schedule change in the future? Maybe. But only if I want it to, which is what really matters.
Now let’s get into my actual aesthetic nurse salary from this past year.
The Numbers
If talking about money and salary is taboo to you, then don’t read this.
I think it’s important to be transparent about this kind of thing. How else would you know if this is a sustainable career for you?
Little disclaimer: because my aesthetic nursing job has required a ton of training and traveling, my hours are almost never consistent. So I’m going to display the AVERAGE HOURLY pay based off my gross pay/hours worked. Let’s just get to the point.
The infographic above displayed the average hourly wage from each of my nursing jobs so far. When I left my full time (90%) bedside nursing job I was making $65/hr. I moved to per diem on my same unit and was making $81/hr working only 3-4 shifts per month. When I started my aesthetic nursing job I was making $50/hr with the promise of jumping to $60/hr after my probation period. Before that time was up I switched to hourly + commission.
So how does my commission work?
I live in California, and in this state you legally must be paid minimum wage hourly. So I make minimum wage ($15/hr) plus 15% of my service sales and 10% of my skincare sales. I’ve been on this structure now for 7 months and my average hourly wage is $100/hr. DOUBLE my initial hourly rate.
Thank goodness for leaps of faith amirite??
Obviously, with a commission based style pay, there will be ups and downs, ebbs and flows. You will also become more skilled and more efficient overtime. So you can only really limit yourself. I love the fact that I have some control over the money I take home every month. And the sky is the limit in my mind! So I hope this was helpful to you.
Aesthetic Nurse Salary Monthly Breakdown
Here I am going to include each month of my first year in aesthetics with my hours and my income. I’m excluding September 2022 because half of the month was hourly and half was commission.
MONTHS ON HOURLY WAGE:
- April 2022 – $2051.65/39.5hrs
- May 2022 -$4348.78/82hrs
- June 2022 – $5443.38/97hrs
- July 2022 – $8249.17/144hrs (this month I earned $1500 in bonuses)
- August 2022 – $4385/87hrs
MONTHS ON MINIMUM WAGE + COMMISSION:
- October 2022 – $8470.78/91hrs
- November 2022 – $7591.53/87hrs
- December 2022 – $13318.61/127hrs
- January 2023 – $6374/63hrs
- February 2023 – $6953.35/72hrs
- March 2023 – $10203.45/90
- April 2023 – $3567.18/34hrs
