A process server’s salary is influenced by a bunch of things, but location is probably the biggest one. Standard rates change from state to state. For instance, cities like Rockville Centre, NY, and Nome, AK, have average salaries that are way higher than the national average.

Experience and Certification are also a huge deal. The more seasoned servers and those with extra legal or investigative certifications can usually charge higher fees. And whether you’re self-employed or work for an agency makes a big difference in what you take home; independent servers usually earn more per job but have to pay for their own business expenses like insurance and gas.

The complexity of the case directly affects what it costs to serve someone and, in turn, what the server earns. If it’s hard to locate someone, skip tracing will be involved, which adds extra fees to find an address. The same goes for if they have to make multiple attempts to reach the person since that also increases the cost. Most process servers will tell you upfront how many attempts they’ll make before closing out a job.

Urgency is another big factor. A lot of process servers will charge a rush fee for expedited service. This is standard practice because of the time demands and the difficulty of catching defendants off guard. Plus, some servers offer extra services like printing documents, filing with the court, or retrieving documents for an extra cost. Even a notary signature on the service affidavit might be an additional fee. The more assignments a server completes in a day, the more their annual income will go up, making workload a key part of their earnings.