SLP Salary Calculator: What Speech-Language Pathologists Earn in 2026
The median Speech-Language Pathologist salary is $97,870 per year ($47.05/hour), per the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Your number depends on your state, setting, and experience. Estimate it in ten seconds below.
Estimated SLP salary in California
$118,970
Typical range $111,752 – $124,766
Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data (May 2025). Estimates, not offers. See the methodology below.
Free, no signup needed for the estimate. Data: BLS OEWS, May 2025.
SLP salary by state, ranked
Median annual wages for Speech-Language Pathologists in every state, from the May 2025 BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey. California leads at $118,970. Remember that rent leads there too: a lower salary in a cheaper state often spends further.
| # | State | Median salary |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | $118,970 |
| 2 | Colorado | $110,750 |
| 3 | District of Columbia | $109,380 |
| 4 | Washington | $105,550 |
| 5 | Nevada | $104,510 |
| 6 | Rhode Island | $104,000 |
| 7 | Delaware | $102,760 |
| 8 | Alaska | $102,670 |
| 9 | Oregon | $102,660 |
| 10 | New Jersey | $101,560 |
| 11 | Massachusetts | $101,310 |
| 12 | New York | $100,610 |
| 13 | Connecticut | $100,110 |
| 14 | Florida | $99,990 |
| 15 | Texas | $99,910 |
| 16 | Maryland | $99,190 |
| 17 | New Mexico | $98,690 |
| 18 | Arizona | $97,800 |
| 19 | Hawaii | $97,560 |
| 20 | Georgia | $96,760 |
| 21 | Virginia | $96,250 |
| 22 | Illinois | $95,080 |
| 23 | Ohio | $93,300 |
| 24 | Pennsylvania | $92,960 |
| 25 | Utah | $91,560 |
| 26 | South Carolina | $90,530 |
| 27 | Minnesota | $89,380 |
| 28 | Missouri | $89,280 |
| 29 | Michigan | $89,120 |
| 30 | Indiana | $87,360 |
| 31 | North Carolina | $86,460 |
| 32 | Tennessee | $84,630 |
| 33 | Oklahoma | $84,470 |
| 34 | Idaho | $84,380 |
| 35 | Nebraska | $84,350 |
| 36 | Arkansas | $83,580 |
| 37 | Kentucky | $83,550 |
| 38 | New Hampshire | $83,040 |
| 39 | Wisconsin | $83,000 |
| 40 | Maine | $82,660 |
| 41 | Vermont | $82,090 |
| 42 | Wyoming | $82,040 |
| 43 | Iowa | $81,050 |
| 44 | West Virginia | $80,970 |
| 45 | Kansas | $80,120 |
| 46 | Montana | $78,740 |
| 47 | Mississippi | $78,130 |
| 48 | North Dakota | $75,240 |
| 49 | Alabama | $73,660 |
| 50 | Louisiana | $69,610 |
| 51 | South Dakota | $65,680 |
Where you work moves the number more than where you live
The gap between the highest and lowest paying common settings is over $34,290 a year, national medians per BLS industry data. Neither choice is wrong. School positions trade salary for academic calendars and pensions; medical settings trade schedule flexibility for pay.
$117,370
Home health
The best-paying common setting. Independence and drive time come with the territory.
$111,680
Skilled nursing
High pay, heavy productivity expectations. Common second act for medical SLPs.
$103,160
Hospital
Acute care and rehab roles. Strong pay plus the deepest clinical variety.
$83,080
Schools
The largest SLP employer. Lower pay, but summers, pensions, and predictable hours.
Private practices and therapy clinics sit between hospitals and schools at a $98,910 national median. Running your own practice changes the math entirely; if that is where you are headed, start with a site that brings in clients. We build websites for SLPs in private practice.
Starting salary, and how pay grows from there
Most Clinical Fellows and first-year SLPs start between the 10th and 25th percentile of their state's range. Nationally that band runs from $62,900 to $77,730. The climb from there is steady rather than steep: the median ($97,870) typically arrives around mid-career, and the top quartile ($114,570+) usually requires either a decade of experience, a high-paying setting, or a move into supervision or specialization.
Salary is only half the career question. If you are weighing the degree itself, our deep dive on whether an SLP salary is worth the cost of the degree covers tuition math, demand, and burnout honestly. And when you are ready to chase a better number, the SLP resume examples show how to present your caseload experience so it reads as value, not just tenure.
SLPA salary: what assistants earn
Speech-Language Pathology Assistants are not tracked as a separate occupation by the BLS, so the cleanest national figure comes from job-posting data: ZipRecruiter puts the average SLPA salary at $58,923 per year ($28.33/hour) as of mid-2026. Pay follows the same geography as SLP pay: assistants in California and the Northeast earn well above that average, while much of the South sits below it.
The calculator above has an SLPA mode that scales the national average by your state's pay ratio. For many SLPAs the bigger financial question is the jump to a master's degree: the median SLP earns roughly $38,947 more per year, which pays back graduate tuition faster than most people expect.
Travel, medical, and pediatric SLP pay
Travel SLP
Travel contracts pay a premium through tax-free housing and meal stipends layered on an hourly rate. Weekly quotes look dramatic; compare total annual compensation instead, and confirm you maintain a qualifying tax home before counting the stipends as yours.
Medical SLP
Hospital, SNF, and home health roles pay the top medians in the field ($103,160 to $117,370 nationally). Dysphagia competence, FEES/MBSS experience, and acute-care exposure are the credentials that move offers.
Pediatric SLP
Pediatric pay spans the whole range depending on the door you walk through: school districts at the schools median, outpatient peds clinics near the clinic median, and early intervention often paid per-visit. The setting, not the population, sets the paycheck.
How this calculator works
Every base figure comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for Speech-Language Pathologists (SOC 29-1127), May 2025 release. That survey covers 183,390 employed SLPs, reported by employers rather than self-reported, which makes it the most reliable public wage source in the field.
- State:we use your state's actual wage percentiles (10th, 25th, median, 75th, 90th), not a national average with a multiplier.
- Experience: your career stage is mapped onto those percentiles. Clinical Fellows land near the 18th percentile, mid-career near the median, and 20+ year veterans near the 78th. It is an approximation, and we say so.
- Setting: the estimate is scaled by the BLS national industry median for your setting relative to the all-settings median.
What it cannot know: your negotiation, your specializations, sign-on bonuses, or local district pay scales. Treat the output as a well-informed anchor, not a promise. For deeper survey-based data by setting and region, ASHA members can also check the ASHA salary surveys.
SLP salary FAQs
The median Speech-Language Pathologist salary in the United States is $97,870 per year ($47.05 per hour), according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data from May 2025. The bottom 10% of SLPs earn under $62,900 and the top 10% earn over $134,160. Where you fall in that range depends mostly on your state, your work setting, and your years of experience. That is exactly what the calculator on this page estimates.