Self-employment method
Architectural Services
47,398 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 47,398 people who filed under this code in 2022, 27.47% 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 = 47,398 · 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 | 7,220 | 15.2% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 5,802 | 12.2% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 9,381 | 19.8% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 7,854 | 16.6% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 7,746 | 16.3% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 6,500 | 13.7% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 1,980 | 4.2% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 679 | 1.4% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 236 | 0.5% |
Who this suits
The median filer grossed $29,125, or $2,427 a month before expenses. That is an operating business at part-time scale: enough revenue to be worth running properly, not enough to be the only thing in the household.
With 47,398 filers, this is a populated field. The market sets the price rather than you, and the useful question is what would let you charge above it.
A 19.8% share — 9,384 filers — grossed $100,000 or more. That is well above what most codes here manage, and it says the middle of Architectural Services is closer to a business than to a sideline.
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.
Nothing stops anyone filing under this code, and 47,398 people did. Free entry is why the lower bands are as full as they are: the distribution below counts everyone who tried, not everyone who was ready.
Who should not do this
Bottom quarter under $8,990, top quarter over $84,156: 9.4x, or $6,263 a month. At this stretch the label has stopped describing one occupation, and every summary statistic about it — including the midpoint — should be treated with suspicion.
The bottom quarter of Architectural Services earns under $8,990 — $41,030 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 pricing by the hour if you cannot fill the hours; the ceiling is arithmetic and it arrives sooner than you think.
13,020 of the 47,398 people filing in 2022 grossed under $10,000 across twelve months — 27.5% of the field. A quarter or more of everyone in Architectural Services took in less revenue than a part-time job would have paid in wages.
Take it as a floor, not an estimate. The $10,000 threshold is measured on money received, before materials, rent, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax, so the true share of filers who ended the year with no income is higher than the figure shown — we simply cannot say how much higher.
What the spread tells you
A ratio of 9.4x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $29,125 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Architectural Services should plan around it.
Put in money rather than ratios: $8,990 at the 25th percentile, $29,125 at the midpoint, $84,156 at the 75th. $75,166 separates the quarter of Architectural Services at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $84,156, the 75th percentile, is worth $55,031 a year more than the $29,125 midpoint and $75,166 more than the $8,990 a quarter of Architectural Services settle for.
$20,135 below the midpoint, $55,031 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Architectural Services that is not a median — including any average you see quoted elsewhere — is describing the top of the range rather than the middle.
Spread across a 2,080-hour year those receipts come to $14.00 an hour at the midpoint, $4.32 at the 25th percentile and $40.45 at the 75th. That is turnover per hour, not pay per hour, and it is not comparable with the $24.04 an hour a typical American job pays.
Counted straight off the return: 7,220 filers grossed under $5,000, 5,802 took $5,000 to $9,999, 9,381 took $10,000 to $24,999, 9,395 cleared $100,000 and 2,895 cleared $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $29,125 is turnover — the money that passed through Architectural Services before expenses. What is left after costs is a different and much smaller number that this dataset does not publish.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Architectural Services, the hourly figure is $29,125 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else