Self-employment method
Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services
199,163 people filed as a nonemployer business under this industry code in 2022 — no payroll, no employees, just them. These are gross receipts reported to the IRS, before any expense is taken out.
Median GROSS RECEIPTS for the year — money in, before rent, materials, fuel, insurance or tax. This is not take-home pay.
Share who grossed under $10,000 for the whole year — before expenses.
The middle half, in gross receipts. A quarter of filers took less than the lower figure.
Source: US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
How often it does not work out
Of the 199,163 people who filed under this code in 2022, 39.22% grossed under $10,000 for the entire year — before a single expense was deducted.
That is a floor, not an estimate. Census publishes GROSS RECEIPTS, not net income. Everyone inside that share earned less than the figure suggests once rent, materials, mileage, insurance and self-employment tax came out — and filers who grossed well above the threshold may still have netted nothing. The true share of people who earn nothing meaningful from this is higher than the number above, never lower.
Denominator: establishments_total = 199,163 · US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
Every filer, by what they grossed
The full distribution Census publishes. The median above is interpolated inside the band that holds the 50th percentile.
| Gross receipts for the year | Filers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $5,000 | 48,090 | 24.1% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 30,014 | 15.1% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 41,612 | 20.9% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 27,720 | 13.9% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 22,971 | 11.5% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 18,275 | 9.2% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 6,219 | 3.1% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 2,825 | 1.4% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 1,436 | 0.7% |
Who this suits
Median gross receipts of $17,742 put the typical filer somewhere between a serious side income and a failing attempt at a full-time one, and the receipts figure alone cannot tell you which.
199,163 people filed under this code. A field that large has a settled price, a settled set of expectations, and no shortage of people willing to meet both.
14.4% of filers grossed $100,000 or more, which is high for this dataset. A substantial share of this field is running an actual business rather than an occasional one.
Independent professional work suits people who can carry the whole business — delivery, sales, admin and collections — because with no employees all four are one person’s week.
There is no training requirement to file under this code — which is precisely why so many people appear in the bottom bands. Entry being free is not the same as the work being viable.
Who should not do this
The top quarter of Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services earns 10.3x the bottom quarter — under $5,283 against over $54,213, a spread of $48,930. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services earns under $5,283 — $44,737 below the $50,020 a typical American job pays. Entering at the bottom and waiting is a live risk here, not a theoretical one, and some people never leave that quarter.
Do not start this without a first client already. Capability does not generate demand in this subsector, and the gap between the two is where most of these businesses end.
78,111 filers out of 199,163 — 39.2% — reported under $10,000 in gross receipts in 2022. At that share the bottom band is not a warning about beginners; it is a description of a large part of the field.
That share is a floor, not an estimate: $10,000 is revenue, not earnings. Everyone counted inside it kept less than $10,000, and an unknown number of the filers above it also finished the year with nothing after costs.
What the spread tells you
A ratio of 10.3x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $17,742 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services should plan around it.
The middle half of this field earns between $5,283 and $54,213. That is $48,930 of range, with $17,742 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Getting to $54,213, the 75th percentile, is worth $36,471 a year more than the $17,742 midpoint and $48,930 more than the $5,283 a quarter of Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services settle for.
$12,459 below the midpoint, $36,471 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services that is not a median — including any average you see quoted elsewhere — is describing the top of the range rather than the middle.
Per hour of a full-time year, the middle of Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services takes $8.52 in revenue — $2.53 at the bottom quarter and $26.06 at the top. Costs have not been deducted from any of those figures, so none of them is an hourly wage.
Counted straight off the return: 48,090 filers grossed under $5,000, 30,014 took $5,000 to $9,999, 41,612 took $10,000 to $24,999, 28,755 cleared $100,000 and 10,480 cleared $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Every figure above is GROSS RECEIPTS, before expenses — money that arrived before rent, materials, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax. The $17,742 midpoint for Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services is not take-home pay and is not comparable to a $17,742 salary.
The hourly number on this page is $17,742 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else