Data entry pay

What It Means

Data entry pay is what a worker earns for keying information, such as forms, records or orders, into a computer system. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tracks the job as "data entry keyers", and their median wage was $19.88 an hour, or $41,340 a year, in May 2025. Job ads may call the same work data entry clerk, operator or specialist, titles that O*NET lists for this occupation.

How People Say It at Work

• "It's a data entry job, mostly typing invoices into the system."
• "They pay by the hour and it's fully remote."
• "How fast do you have to type for that one?"

The Breakdown

The figure, with its source

Worked example. A data entry job pays $16 an hour for 30 hours a week (example numbers). That's $480 a week and $24,960 over 52 weeks before taxes. The rate sits $3.88 under the BLS median, so asking about the pay range is reasonable before you accept. At the median of $19.88, the same 30 hours would bring $596.40 a week.

What moves the number

• Hours. Weekly pay depends as much on how many hours you get as on the rate.
• Where you work. The Department of Labor says the highest applicable minimum wageMinimum wageThe lowest hourly pay the law allows an employer to pay; the federal minimum is $7.25 an hour, and a higher state or local rate wins where one applies. See more applies, federal, state or local.
• Whether you're an employee. BLS's survey covers wage and salary workers; someone paid as a self-employed contractor isn't in the median.

Good to Know

The $19.88 median comes from BLS's Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, which counts workers on business payrolls and leaves out the self-employed. According to the Department of Labor, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour for covered nonexempt employees, and a higher state or local rate applies where there is one. Pay offered per task or per form can be turned into an hourly figure by timing how many you finish in an hour, so you can compare it with these numbers.

Related Terms and Categories

• Remote work

  Doing your job from somewhere other than your employer's workplace, most often from home, for some or all of the workweek.

• Minimum wage

  The lowest hourly pay the law allows an employer to pay; the federal minimum is $7.25 an hour, and a higher state or local rate wins where one applies.

• Gig work

  Short-term, on-demand jobs or sales, often found through an app or website, such as rides, deliveries, errands or selling goods; the IRS treats the pay as taxable income.

• 1099 contractor

  An independent contractor whose pay a business reports on Form 1099-NEC; they're self-employed, so no tax is withheld and they owe self-employment tax.

• Take-home pay

  The money that actually reaches you from a paycheck after taxes and other deductions are taken out, also called net pay or net income.

Pay, rates and costs