The average salary for Product Designers in Indianapolis

The rise of remote work opportunities for Product Designers has opened up many of us living locally in Indianapolis to work for companies located in other parts of the country. As I've talked to peers, I've heard that companies treat how they pay Product Designers living in Indianapolis a few different ways. Some companies tend to pay based on the average salary for the location the person lives in, while others have a base pay that is adjusted based on the cost of living.

Looking at Glassdoor, the average based pay for Product Designers in the United States is $80,766. The average with cash bonuses, commission, tips, and profit sharing makes the average go up to $95,549.

According to Glassdoor, the average base pays for Product Designers in Indianapolis is $77,008. They also estimate that companies that offer cash bonuses, commission, tips, and profit sharing make that average go up to $89,463. According to Payscale the cost of living in Indianapolis is 9% lower than in the rest of the country.

According to the Glassdoor average, Product Designers in Indianapolis make 6.77% less than the national average. I find it helpful to see what the national average is compared to our local average. Many of us are working for companies based in other states so we should all at a minimum use the national average rather than our local market average. And if you are working locally, you should expect employers to pay you on that same base salary because you can leave and get that money elsewhere.

I also checked these numbers against Levels.fyi and the data that they have collected shows that across the country the average pay of a Product Designer is $156,000. I also checked the average submitted for Indianapolis, and it's $111,000. (they don't have as much data, so the range of roles is higher, pulling the average up a bit). If we use the average listed on Levels.fyi we are making 33.7% less than the national average.

For fun, I also wanted to see what some of the larger tech companies in the United States are paying Product Designers on average.

I hope this post helps you ground your next salary negotiation in a way that makes sure that you are paid fairly!