Salary benchmarks › Executive Pastor

Executive Pastor salary & cost by state

The executive pastor is a church's operational engine — the person who turns vision into systems, budgets, and a functioning staff. Because the role blends ministry leadership with genuine management responsibility, its pay tracks closer to a nonprofit executive than a typical ministry staffer, and it scales steeply as the organization it runs grows.

At a national baseline (mid-size church), an executive pastor costs a church about $87,500/year before benefits. Pick your state for a real, cost-of-living-adjusted estimate — and the exact figure in the calculator.

Your church's real number

Estimates are a start. See your actual cost.

Plug in your executive pastor's salary, housing, and benefits and get the exact fully-loaded cost — clergy or staff — then plan your whole team.

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Choose a state (est. cost to a mid-size church)

Alabama$77,700Alaska$89,600Arizona$88,113Arkansas$76,038California$96,863Colorado$90,212Connecticut$90,650Delaware$87,325Florida$90,475Georgia$84,263Hawaii$96,250Idaho$83,563Illinois$87,500Indiana$81,638Iowa$76,825Kansas$78,837Kentucky$78,925Louisiana$77,175Maine$84,963Maryland$91,875Massachusetts$92,575Michigan$84,175Minnesota$86,275Mississippi$76,125Missouri$79,450Montana$82,775Nebraska$78,837Nevada$87,500New Hampshire$91,175New Jersey$95,200New Mexico$80,675New York$94,413North Carolina$82,513North Dakota$77,875Ohio$81,200Oklahoma$76,825Oregon$90,475Pennsylvania$85,400Rhode Island$89,512South Carolina$81,988South Dakota$77,525Tennessee$80,413Texas$84,963Utah$86,538Vermont$85,750Virginia$88,462Washington$93,625West Virginia$78,313Wisconsin$82,338Wyoming$81,113

Other church roles

Senior PastorAssociate PastorYouth PastorWorship DirectorChildren's Ministry DirectorCommunications DirectorOperations Director

Salary figures represent estimated total cash compensation — base salary plus any housing-allowance designation — before benefits (retirement, insurance) and before the clergy SECA offset.

Benchmarks built on 2024–2025 source data (BEA 2024, BLS May 2025).

How these numbers are built: a national church-comp base for the role, scaled by church size and adjusted for state cost of living, then run through the same fully-loaded cost model our calculator uses. Sources: BEA Regional Price Parities (state cost of living, 2024); BLS Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics (May 2025); Lifeway Research / GuideStone SBC Church Compensation Study (biennial, free). Figures are planning estimates, not a guarantee — your church's real numbers depend on experience, scope, and benefits.