Optometric technician salary starts with a data problem: the federal occupation system has no code for the title.
The closest view, ophthalmic medical technicians employed in offices of optometrists, earned a median of $38,650 a year — $18.58 an hour — in May 2025.
Across all industries the same occupation's median was $45,570 ($21.91 an hour).
This page breaks the labeled numbers out by experience, certification, setting and state.
Optometric technician hourly and annual pay
There is no federal occupation code named optometric technician, so every pay figure for this job is borrowed from a neighboring occupation — and the honest way to borrow is to name the code and the industry slice.
The BLS OEWS May 2025 release gives two labeled views of SOC 29-2057, ophthalmic medical technicians: the whole occupation across all industries, and the slice working in offices of optometrists (NAICS 621320).
Across all industries, OEWS counted 71,010 employed ophthalmic medical technicians, with a median wage of $45,570 a year — $21.91 an hour.
The mean was $47,060, so the average sits above the middle worker.
The optometry-office slice is smaller and pays less: 22,900 technicians in offices of optometrists, a median of $38,650 a year ($18.58 an hour), and a mean of $41,090.
That gap is the headline for this job: the occupation's national median is $45,570, but in offices of optometrists it is $38,650.
A median is the middle value: half the workers in the group earned more, half earned less.
OEWS surveys wage-and-salary employees, so these figures describe payroll jobs, not self-employment.
On an hourly clock, the optometry-office median is $18.58 and the all-industry median is $21.91.
The spread around those middles is wide enough that the percentile ladder — the next section — matters more than any single median.
Entry-level vs experienced optometric technician pay
The federal tables this page cites publish no experience split.
The OEWS wage rows give employment counts, means and percentiles, and the projections program gives employment and entry education.
So there is no official entry-level or experienced figure for this job in the data we use.
The percentile ladder is the closest published picture of the spread: across all industries in May 2025, the 10th percentile was $35,700, the 25th $38,170, the median $45,570, the 75th $51,390 and the 90th $61,940.
Inside offices of optometrists, the published percentiles run from $30,930 at the 10th to $51,420 at the 90th.
Read the ladder as the occupation's range at one moment, not as a career timetable — the data do not say which percentile a given year of experience corresponds to.
What the data do give on entry is education: BLS's Employment Projections program lists a postsecondary nondegree award as typical entry education for the occupation.
How pay moves as duties grow is a question the optometric technician career guide takes up through the task ladder.
Certified (CPOT) pay: is there a premium?
The technician-level credential is the Certified Paraoptometric Technician (CPOT) — one of four paraoptometric certifications the American Optometric Association (AOA) offers, alongside the CPO, CPOA and CPOC.
In 2025, 415 people held the CPOT, among nearly 5,100 people holding a paraoptometric certification after the November 2025 testing period.
Is there a certified-versus-noncertified pay difference?
No official source in our research publishes one: the OEWS tables this page cites report a single wage series for the whole occupation, with no certification split, and we did not find an official salary survey reporting certified technician pay.
The employer postings quoted in the next section advertised flat hourly rates or hourly ranges, and the Warby Parker and Visionworks postings did not mention a certification pay differential.
A credential is also not a state license or registration — it sits alongside whatever the supervising optometrist may delegate and whatever the employer asks for.
A credential is not a pay promise
Private practice vs corporate optical vs ophthalmology
The setting changes the number.
OEWS publishes wage rows for SOC 29-2057 by industry, and four of them map onto eye care's main employers.
All four rows are the same occupation in the same May 2025 release, so the comparison is like-for-like: each figure is a median or a mean for SOC 29-2057 in that industry.
The hospital row counts just 3,000 jobs nationally, so read it as a small slice of the occupation.
The optometry-office row is the closest available match for technicians employed by optometrists.
The physician-office and hospital rows count the same occupation working in offices of physicians (621100) and general medical and surgical hospitals (622100).
The retail row is thin — 2,630 jobs in health and personal care retailers.
So the corporate-optical picture comes from dated postings:
- Warby Parker optometric technician postings live on October 12, 2026 listed flat hourly rates of $17.00 (Scottsdale, AZ) to $20.00 (New York, NY); one New York part-time posting listed $18.00.
- A part-time 'Optometric Technician - Medical Assistant' posting for America's Best (National Vision) in Chicago, IL listed $17.05–$20.72 an hour.
- Visionworks postings for a 'Clinical Specialist/Optometric Assistant' on the same date listed $11.09–$14.97 an hour part time in Georgia stores and $17–$25.50 an hour full time in Oneonta, NY.
Posted ranges are one employer's snapshot of one location on one day.
Treat them as evidence of where retail tech pay starts and stops in the cities listed, not as what a chain pays everywhere.
The four industry rows behind those comparisons are set out below.
| Industry row (NAICS) | Jobs | Median pay | Mean pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Offices of optometrists (621320) | 22,900 | $38,650 | $41,090 |
| Offices of physicians (621100) | 38,900 | $47,200 | $48,540 |
| General medical and surgical hospitals (622100) | 3,000 | $61,620 | $61,800 |
| Health and personal care retailers (456100) | 2,630 | $37,850 | $40,320 |
Why BLS data is approximate for this job
BLS has no occupation code for optometric technicians or assistants.
The closest published occupation is SOC 29-2057, ophthalmic medical technicians, and the industry row for offices of optometrists is the closest setting match — which is why this page labels every figure with both.
A second federal occupation overlaps this workforce in optometry offices: medical assistants (SOC 31-9092).
In offices of optometrists, OEWS counted 11,060 medical assistants at a median of $38,170 a year ($18.35 an hour) — close to the technician proxy, and one more reason a single 'optometric technician average' is shaky.
Nationally, medical assistants are a much larger occupation with a slightly higher median: 817,870 workers, a median of $45,690 ($21.97 an hour), with percentiles running from $36,050 at the 10th to $59,310 at the 90th.
The practical consequence: quoting the occupation's national median of $45,570 as the pay for this job overstates the $38,650 median for the occupation's optometry-office slice.
Two more labels matter.
OEWS covers wage-and-salary employees only, and the projections series that does include the self-employed puts self-employment for this occupation at 0.4%, so the exclusion changes little here.
State medians, used in the next section, are not cost-of-living adjusted, and states where the occupation is small carry wide error margins.
Apart from the individual employer postings quoted above, this page uses the federal release for every figure, rather than job-board salary-report averages, which our research does not treat as citable.
For the exact-fit tables — the same SOC tracked as its own occupation, with percentiles and state rows — see ophthalmic tech pay by state.
How to earn more as an optometric technician
One lever in the federal data is the industry row.
The occupation's median in general medical and surgical hospitals was $61,620, against $38,650 in offices of optometrists and $37,850 in health and personal care retailers — the same occupation, the same release, different employers.
Those rows show where the occupation pays most, not a promise attached to any single opening.
Geography moves the number too.
The three highest-median states for the occupation in May 2025 were Minnesota ($63,080; 720 jobs), Hawaii ($58,240; 190 jobs) and Wisconsin ($56,420; 1,260 jobs).
The three lowest were Wyoming ($35,740; 110 jobs), Utah ($35,950; 680 jobs) and Mississippi ($36,220; 690 jobs).
The largest job counts sit elsewhere: Florida (7,020 jobs; median $46,830), Texas (6,540; $43,640), New York (4,250; $48,440), New Jersey (4,150; $49,050) and Illinois (3,250; $47,100).
None of these state medians is cost-of-living adjusted, so a high-median state is not automatically a better-paid life.
The federal rows also price the supervisory and management occupations in the same offices.
In offices of optometrists, first-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers earned a median of $56,130 (5,160 jobs), and medical and health services managers $72,620 (2,040 jobs) — different occupations, so not technician pay, and not evidence of a promotion path.
Certification is the lever this page cannot price: no official source we checked publishes a certified-pay premium, so treat any precise 'CPOT adds $X an hour' claim with suspicion.
The credential's value shows up employer by employer — which is what live postings are for.
- Setting — the same occupation pays differently by industry row
- State — medians range widely, and none is cost-of-living adjusted
- Occupation — supervisor and manager rows in the same offices price higher
- Certification — no published premium in our research; requirements are set employer by employer
- Postings — the practical check on any national figure, city by city
Demand is the backdrop rather than a pay number: BLS's Employment Projections program projects the occupation to grow 21.4% between 2025 and 2035, from 72,500 to 88,000 jobs, with 11,800 openings a year — a series that includes the self-employed, unlike the wage counts above.
Career and pay information, not medical, clinical, billing, licensing, legal or employment-law advice. Every figure above keeps its own occupation, industry and date label; certification questions belong to the AOA's Commission on Paraoptometric Certification, and pay decisions to each employer.