Optometrist Salary in Georgia 2026,
$128,830 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Georgia figure is $128,830 a year, or $61.94 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 — 5.7% below the national median of $136,570. The band runs $51,030 at the 10th percentile to $189,610 at the 90th, with an unusual jump to $104,850 at the 25th percentile — that low tenth percentile reflects part-time and partial-year practice rather than a low-paid tier of full-time optometrists.

Savannah at $159,330, then Albany $134,250, Augusta-Richmond County $130,390, Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell $128,830 and Columbus $121,830. Three markets outpay the capital, which reflects practice mix rather than local prosperity: independent practice ownership and medical optometry are proportionally more common outside Atlanta, and corporate and retail optometry proportionally more common within it.

Yes. The Georgia State Board of Optometry certifies optometrists in the use of therapeutic pharmaceutical agents, which permits the diagnosis and medical management of eye disease rather than refraction and vision correction alone. That therapeutic scope is central to the economics of the profession here — managing glaucoma, diabetic eye disease and anterior segment conditions bills differently from prescribing spectacles, and it is much of what separates the middle of this pay band from the top.

The data points that way clearly, though it cannot isolate the two. Independent practice ownership brings professional fees plus optical dispensing and specialty service revenue, and it is the main route to the $159,140 seventy-fifth percentile and $189,610 ninetieth. Retail and commercial optometry offers employment without capital risk and more predictable hours, and it clusters lower in the band — it is also where most of the part-time practice producing the $51,030 tenth percentile sits.

Partly practice mix and partly market size. Georgia employs optometrists at 0.65 times the national rate, so this is not oversupply — but the state has a substantial retail and commercial optometry presence, particularly around Atlanta, and that segment pays below independent medical practice everywhere. The national median is raised by states with a higher proportion of established independent practice. Savannah's $159,330 shows what the other model produces within Georgia itself.

Because optometry has an unusually high rate of part-time and partial-year practice, and OEWS annualises whatever hours are worked. An optometrist covering two days a week at a retail location appears in this data as an annual figure around the $51,030 tenth percentile, not because the rate is low but because the hours are few. The doubling to $104,850 at the 25th percentile is essentially the transition to full-time practice. Reading the 10th percentile as a starting salary for a new graduate would be a serious misinterpretation.

Practice ownership sits largely outside it. A meaningful share of Georgia optometrists own their practices, and owner income combines professional fees, optical dispensing margin and business profit — none of which is a wage. The $189,610 ninetieth percentile therefore marks where the employed distribution ends rather than where optometric income ends. The part-time distortion at the bottom compounds the problem: this single median is bracketed by two populations it describes poorly.

Practice model first — ownership or partnership versus employment is the largest determinant, and it is most of the distance from the $104,850 twenty-fifth percentile to the $159,140 seventy-fifth. Then therapeutic caseload, since medical optometry under Georgia's therapeutic certification bills differently from refraction. Then optical dispensing, which for practice owners is a substantial revenue line separate from professional services. Then location, with independent practice markets like Savannah at $159,330 outperforming corporate-heavy Atlanta. And then specialty services such as dry eye, myopia management and specialty contact lenses.