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Optical & photonics · Healthcare & wellbeing

Optometrist: salary vs freelance rates

Provide licensed eye examinations and ongoing vision care, combining clinical judgment, patient communication, accurate records, and coordination with other qualified eye-care professionals.

U.S. employee wage reference

$136,570 / year

Optometrists · May 2025 national median

Illustrative freelance rate

$142.98 / hour

To replace this wage plus $15K benefits, with 1,200 billable hours/year, $20K business costs, and no percentage fees. Before personal taxes.

The wage is for the named occupation; the hourly rate is a planning calculation, not a surveyed freelance price for this specialty. Adjust the assumptions below.

Calculate my freelance rate →

Working in this sector

Optometry requires professional education and licensure. Clinical care belongs within the practitioner’s authorized scope; portfolio examples here concern fictional workflows, not patient examination or treatment. Practice costs can exceed the calculator’s default business-expense allowance.

Skills that make the work valuable

  • Licensed vision assessment
  • Clinical recordkeeping
  • Patient communication
  • Eye-care quality review

Build proof, not just a list

Create a fictional clinic workflow covering appointment preparation, consent, record access, and escalation ownership. Ask a qualified optometrist to review its operational assumptions; do not use a portfolio exercise to examine or diagnose patients.

How to price this work as a freelancer

For qualified clinical cover, agree clinic facilities, appointment scope, professional responsibilities, indemnity, records access, and follow-up ownership. Agree the inputs, deliverable, review rounds, and acceptance criteria before quoting. Include preparation, specialist review, equipment or licensing costs, and handover time where relevant. Price ongoing support separately from the initial engagement.

Start with the income you need to replace

Required hourly rate = (target salary + benefits budget + annual business expenses) ÷ (annual billable hours × share of revenue retained after fees).

For illustration, $100/hour × 25 billable hours/week × 48 working weeks = $120,000 revenue. After $20,000 in business expenses, that leaves $100,000 profit before personal taxes. Replacing a $100,000 salary plus $15,000 in benefits under those assumptions takes $112.50/hour, with no percentage fees.

These are editable planning assumptions, not rates surveyed for optometrist work. Your personal taxes, location, contract terms, and workload still affect the comparison.

Employee or freelancer?

Working as an employee

Employment can provide clinics or optical laboratories, specialist colleagues, equipment, and shared responsibility for clinical care or product quality. Compare the actual role scope, supervision, benefits, working hours, and access to tools with the cited occupation reference.

Running a freelance business

Independent work ranges from qualified clinical cover and eyewear services to bounded technical modeling, measurement, and documentation; these require different facilities, oversight, and cost assumptions. For this specialty: For qualified clinical cover, agree clinic facilities, appointment scope, professional responsibilities, indemnity, records access, and follow-up ownership.

Where this career could take you

  1. 01Relevant education and supervised practice
  2. 02Optometrist
  3. 03Optical & photonics practice lead or independent specialist

An example path, with room for lateral moves or specialization. Progression depends on opportunities and demonstrated work; these steps do not imply a timetable or salary increase.

Try one small next step

Review accredited optometry education and licensing requirements, then interview a practicing optometrist about supervised training and the practical costs of clinic work.