BCBA salary: what employers advertise in current job ads.

How much do BCBAs make?

Employers on our board advertise a median BCBA salary of $95,000/yr, with the middle half of employers posting $90,000/yr–$100,000/yr.

That figure comes from 646 current listings posted by 35 employers. Each employer counts once, so a company that posts dozens of openings does not drown out a small clinic that posts one.

Some BCBA jobs are paid by the hour instead. The employer median for those ads is $82.50/hr, based on 29 listings. The table below shows both.

These are advertised base pay figures. They do not include bonuses, benefits or anything you negotiate later. They also leave out employers that do not post pay at all. Use them as a starting point for comparing offers, not as a promise of what you will earn.

To see the ads behind these numbers, browse current BCBA jobs and look at how each employer describes the role, the caseload and the schedule.

What is BCBA salary by state?

The table below shows the median advertised BCBA salary in each state that has enough current listings to report.

BCBA annual salary by state

A state appears only when it has at least 10 listings from at least 3 employers. If your state is missing, there are not enough ads with posted pay right now. A missing row tells you nothing about whether pay there is high or low.

If you are asking whether an offer is good for your state, start by finding your state's row. Check whether the offer falls inside the middle half of employers or outside it. Then compare the workload attached to the offer, which the sections below cover.

To compare openings in a specific area, browse ABA jobs by state and city.

Do remote BCBA jobs pay less than on-site jobs?

The table below shows the current advertised salary for remote, hybrid and on-site BCBA jobs, and you should read the answer there because the numbers change every day.

We label each job using the work arrangement stated in the posting. The sample for each group shifts as ads open and close, so we do not state in prose which setting pays more. Look at the table on the day you are comparing offers.

Pay is only part of the comparison. A remote, hybrid or on-site role can differ in caseload size, how many RBTs you supervise, how much you travel and how much documentation you do. Ask about each of these before you decide that one offer is better than another.

If remote work fits your life, you can browse current remote BCBA jobs and compare their posted pay with the table.

Hourly or salaried: how are BCBA jobs paid?

Most BCBA ads with posted pay on our board quote an annual salary. Hourly BCBA ads are far fewer and are often part-time or contract.

The table below splits advertised pay by employment type, full-time or part-time, as stated in each posting. It shows annual and hourly figures where enough listings exist.

Be careful when you compare an hourly offer with a salaried one. Multiplying an hourly rate by full-time hours gives a misleading number if the job is part-time or contract, or if you are only paid for sessions that happen.

If you are looking at a fee-for-service or hourly role, ask what you are paid for. Find out whether documentation, parent training, assessments and drive time are paid. Ask what happens when a client cancels or an authorization lapses. Ask whether the role includes benefits, PTO or a CEU stipend.

If you are weighing a salaried role, the question shifts to the billable target. That is covered below.

How much more does a BCBA make than an RBT?

The roles table below shows the current advertised pay for BCBAs, BCaBAs, RBTs and behavior technicians side by side, so you can read the gap directly.

BCBA pay is quoted mainly as an annual salary, and RBT pay is quoted mainly as an hourly rate. The table shows each role in the form employers use most often. Keep that in mind before you convert one into the other.

The roles also require very different preparation. According to the BACB's BCBA Handbook (updated June 2026), the BCBA is a graduate-level certification. Standard supervised fieldwork is 2,000 hours, or 1,500 hours if the fieldwork is concentrated.

For more detail on technician pay, see RBT and behavior technician pay in current job ads. For a plain comparison of duties and requirements, read BCBA vs RBT.

How do billable hours change what a BCBA salary is worth?

A billable-hour target changes how much work you do for the salary, so two offers with similar pay can be worth very different amounts.

Many salaried BCBA offers set a billable or productivity expectation. We do not have data on what targets employers set, so this page does not say what a normal target is. What we can show is how to compare two offers.

An illustration, not observed data

The numbers below are made up to show the arithmetic. They do not come from our job ads.

Offer A pays $90,000 with a 30-hour weekly billable target. Offer B pays $85,000 with a 25-hour weekly target. Assume 50 working weeks for both.

Offer A asks for 1,500 billable hours a year. That works out to $60 per billable hour. Offer B asks for 1,250 billable hours a year. That works out to $68 per billable hour.

Offer A pays $5,000 more, but it asks for 250 more billable hours. That is $20 for each extra hour. Your real week also includes work that may not count as billable, such as documentation and travel. The more of that work you have, the more the target matters.

When you get an offer, ask whether the target is weekly, monthly or averaged over a longer period. Ask what counts toward it, such as direct supervision, parent training and assessments. Ask what happens when clients cancel or authorizations lapse. If there is a bonus above the target, ask how it is calculated and when it is paid.

What about new BCBAs and experience?

We do not publish BCBA pay by experience level, because job ads rarely state years of experience in a way we can group.

Our figures also exclude BCBA trainee, student analyst, apprentice, fellowship and fieldwork titles. The numbers on this page reflect jobs posted for BCBAs, not for people still working toward certification.

If you are a new BCBA, ask each employer for the pay band for the role. Ask how they decide where a new BCBA starts in that band, and what moves you up. Compare the answer with the middle half of employers in the national and state tables.

If you are not certified yet, the route is changing. The BACB says eligibility pathways change starting January 1, 2027. The BCBA certification roadmap walks through the steps. If you are planning supervised fieldwork, see BCBA supervision package prices and fieldwork rules.

How should you negotiate a BCBA offer?

Negotiate by first getting every detail of the job, then comparing it with the tables on this page.

Base pay is one line. The rest of the offer decides how hard you work for it. Before you respond, ask questions like these.

• What is the pay band for this role, and where does this offer sit in it?
• What is the billable target, and is it weekly, monthly or averaged?
• Which activities count toward the target?
• What happens to pay or targets when clients cancel or authorizations lapse?
• How are bonuses above the target calculated and paid?
• How many clients will be on my caseload, and how many RBTs will I supervise?
• How much travel is expected, and is drive time paid?
• How much time is set aside for documentation?
• Is there a CEU stipend, and how much PTO comes with the role?

Once you have the answers, compare the base pay with your state's row and the middle half of employers. If the billable target or caseload is heavy, use that as a reason to ask for more pay or a lower target. Keep your request specific and tied to the facts of the job.

Before you sign, run the offer through our ABA job offer checklist so nothing gets missed.

How we built these numbers

Every figure on this page is recalculated each time the page loads, using current job ads on SpecialNeedsJobs.org.

We include published, non-expired U.S. listings that post a structured hourly or annual pay range in U.S. dollars. Each listing is represented by the midpoint of its posted range. Each employer then counts once, using the median of its own listings. The tables report the median and the middle half (25th to 75th percentile) across employers.

A group shows up only when it has at least 10 listings from at least 3 employers. BCBA trainee, student analyst, apprentice, fellowship and fieldwork titles are excluded. Repeated copies of the same title, employer and location count once.

These are advertised base pay figures, before bonuses and benefits. They are not what people actually earn, and they are not a survey. Employers that do not post pay are not represented.

We do not use federal wage data for this page. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program does not publish a category that isolates BACB-certified behavior analysts. Attaching a broader occupation's median to BCBAs would be misleading. Certification facts on this page come from the BACB's BCBA Handbook, updated June 2026.