When Is It Time to Ask for a Raise? And How to Actually Do It
If the company you work for is not one with an automatic yearly assessment and pay raise, then there might come a time when you look at your Expense Sheet and think, “This is not working.”
The good news: you don’t necessarily need to find a new job.
You might be overdue for a pay raise.
If your boss doesn’t have a yearly review and raise system, then you need to take the initiative in bringing up the conversation.
Here are some tips and guidelines on how to do so effectively.
Plan the Meeting
Before jumping the gun, ask yourself the following questions to determine if you really are due for a raise:
Have you gotten a raise in the past 2-3 years?
Getting at least a 2-3% increase each year is important in order to keep up with inflation. Otherwise, you’re not earning the same amount - you’re earning less each year.
For the past 4 years, inflation has been rising between 2.68-3.4% annually. That means that if you’re earning the same amount each of those years, 4 years down the line prices have risen 13% leaving you with about 11.4% less purchasing power (I don’t understand that math either lol ChatGPT did it for me🫣).
For example, if you’ve been earning $55,000/year since 2023, would have purchasing power of roughly $48,700 in 2026 dollars, which is $6,284 less per year than it was when you first negotiated that salary.
Has your role expanded into more responsibilities than you initially had?
Your initial salary was decided based on a specific set of responsibilities. But as time goes on, you prove your reliability, and circumstances change (other employees leave, client rosters grow…) roles tend to naturally expand. If you’re doing good work your boss will naturally start to trust you, giving you higher-value work, sometimes outside of your original job description, knowing that she can rely on you to perform well.
If the work you do daily has changed from what your original role was, especially if it’s grown in complexity or importance to the company, then your salary should grow to reflect the increased value you provide and the added weight of responsibility on your shoulders.
You might have started out as just a junior designer with oversight while doing resizes, edits, and small design items. But by now you might be independently designing full campaigns, ads, logos, and event posters. Or you might be creating marketing calendars, writing copy for social posts, and strategizing email sequences.
What started out as small items easily handed off to any designer has grown into strategically significant contributions to the team’s output that have your unique touch on them.
That’s worth more than your initial salary was.
Has your value to the company increased since you were first hired?
Similar to the point above, the longer you work somewhere the more valuable you become to the company.
You now know their processes inside and out. No one needs to double check your work or stand on top of you making sure you put things in the correct folder or assigned tasks properly. You understand your boss’s taste and preferences and know what she’s looking for and what she means when she gives feedback.
That’s a level of knowledge that is sometimes overlooked but becomes imminently clear how valuable it is when the company needs to hire someone new. Suddenly the company is in chaos for a few months because one team member requires extra oversight, training, and corrections, taking up time from other members.
So don’t overlook the value of just being familiar with the company after all this time. That’s worth months of training for a new employee.
And you might have improved your skills since joining the team. Have you taken any courses to learn new skills? Have you watched tutorials to learn new techniques to execute a particular design style for a project? Has your design time sped up?
I bet all of those (or at least the last two) are true.
Maybe when you joined you were a junior designer but after 2 years of hard work you’re now a mid-level designer. That’s worth more.
Do you earn within the industry standard value (in your industry and community) for your skills and experience?
It’s hard to know what the standard value is for your experience level since people don’t disclose their salaries often. The amount varies based on not just experience/skill level (junior, mid and senior designers) but also based on work location (in-house at a business tends to pay better than in-house at an agency).
Ask around among a few of your designer friends who work in similar jobs, such as former co-workers or in Slack groups like DesignAlly to find out what the current going rates are.
As of the publishing of this article, in-house at an agency rates are: Junior Designer - $25-35/hr, Mid-Level Designer - $35-50/hr, Senior Designer - $50+. These are just averages so there will always be exceptions to the rule, but at least they give you a general ballpark to start from.
If you see that you’re currently earning well below your skill level’s range, then it’s time to look more closely at your compensation package.
Is now a good time to ask for more money?
Timing is everything. Take a look at the company and judge if now is a time when you will realistically get a “yes” to a request for more money.
Is the company struggling, having a slow season, or just lost a big client?
Or are things going well with an abundance of work and client successes?
If it’s not a good time, but you genuinely need a raise or will have to start looking for work elsewhere, I have some suggestions for you below to try to make it work without straining the company’s finances.
If this “slow season” has become multiple seasons and is beyond what you can financially afford, then perhaps it’s time to decide if this current role can meet your needs…
How to Ask
This is the nerve-wracking part, but don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. Here are some do’s and don’ts to avoid tripping over so the meeting goes smoothly with a positive outcome for both of you:
Do
Start out by mentioning something good such as what you love about working here.
Then segue into your request by mentioning some recent successes you had for the company such as a happy client, a successful campaign, etc.
Bring up the added value you bring to the company now that you have these years of experience since your last raise using the point from above (how you’ve improved in speed, quality, and reliability) and/or how your responsibilities and role have increased to add greater value to the company.
Then go for the ask. I like to frame it as a question, leaving room for the other person to negotiate and not feel trapped in a corner which can cause an instinctive backlash or at least a bad taste in their mouth.
Be pleasant and flexible. Show that this is an open conversation and you’re willing to negotiate and discuss what might be holding them back from moving forward with a raise and that you’re willing to work hard to earn it if necessary.
Don’t
Base your argument on your personal financial needs. It comes across as a bit self-absorbed instead of thinking about the company and your boss’s point of view. Yes, paying your bills is a real need for you, but it’s not the primary basis on which the business can determine its financials and what it can afford to spend.
Jump too high in your request. Raises typically land within a 3-10% increase annually. Try to remain honest with yourself and realistic as to the current value you provide the company. With the exception being if your role or value has increased significantly or your current salary is greatly below what it should be - in which case a large adjustment might be reasonable.
If a raise isn’t an option right now, here are some other approaches you can suggest:
Staggered raises scheduled throughout the year so that it doesn’t go up at once but gradually increases so that by the end of the year you’re at the salary you were aiming for.
Commission-based where you earn a percentage on any sales or upsells you get clients to sign on for (if it makes sense for your position within the company), that way you earn money when the company does.
Performance-based where you discuss specific goals they want you to reach and you schedule performance reviews every few months to check if you’re meeting them in which case you earn your raise.
Cutting your hours or increasing your amount of paid vacation days for the same pay, so your effective hourly rate increases without the amount the company pays you increasing.
So, is it time for a raise?
Probably.
And now you know how to get one.
And if you’ve read this far but are a freelancer who doesn’t work for someone else - I bet it’s time for you to raise your rates! 😉
This article took you just 6 minutes to read, but it took me 2 hours and 50 minutes to put together. If you found it useful, please consider sharing it with others.
