Advertising sales is an established trade here: 260 agents in the Rochester metro, median pay $68,310. Read on for the seat itself, the residual pay model, and the shape of the local business base.
Start with the count: 260 advertising sales agents in Rochester, NY (0.5 per 1,000 jobs). Read against the US, a location quotient of 0.9 puts the occupation at about its national concentration, neither crowded nor empty. Pay in the occupation runs a mean of $79,210 and a median of $68,310 a year, against $80,670 and $64,820 nationally, so local wages are 5 percent above the US median. Those numbers describe the salaried version of this job in Rochester, NY. The version on this page pays a share of monthly ad spend with no cap, which is why the size of the local business base matters more than the median wage.
| Occupation | Employed | Mean pay | Median pay | Median vs US |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web developers 15-1254 | 140 | $85,360 | $79,930 | 14 percent below |
| Market research analysts and marketing specialists 13-1161 | 2,550 | $81,630 | $77,170 | about the same as |
| Wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives 41-4012 | 3,220 | $82,840 | $75,450 | 5 percent above |
| Advertising sales agents 41-3011 | 260 | $79,210 | $68,310 | 5 percent above |
The business base is 23,916 establishments with employees, 22.6 per 1,000 residents, 10 percent below the national figure (US: 25). 1,238 of those businesses are home-services contractors, 5.2% of everything, about the same as the US share. Counted by establishment, the top local trades are restaurants (1,929), personal care services (571) and landscaping companies (471). Where competition is thickest: auto repair shops, 1.4 times as common here as in the country at large. The full trade-by-trade table for the metro is on the Rochester, NY market page.
Field or remote is your call. The territory is the Rochester metro; the tools, the collateral and the founders are a message away. In practice the role is a pipeline: businesses in the Rochester metro that advertise or should, outreach with real context, a discovery call, a plan, a signature, and then a relationship you maintain.
Pay is a flat 18% recurring commission on every dollar of ad spend your accounts run, every month, for as long as they keep running it and you keep the relationship in good standing. There is no base salary, no hourly and no draw; it is a 1099 role.
Worked example: $3,000 of monthly ad spend is $540 to the rep, every month. Twenty accounts like it are $10,800 a month. The right fit is a self-directed hunter who can prospect and close without micromanagement and can stomach a 60-to-90-day ramp. The wrong fit is someone who needs a base salary or assigned leads.
208,772 people live in Rochester. The median household income of $47,213 runs 38 percent below the metro figure; the median home value of $139,600 is 32 percent below the metro median; 38.1% of homes are owned rather than rented. Of 105,136 people in the labor force, 8,334 are unemployed, a rate of 7.9%. Of 93,261 households, 35,541 are owners and 57,720 are renters. The city accounts for 19.7% of the metro population of 1.06 million. The median age is 33.7. A four-year degree or more: 42,139 adults, 30% of the adult population. For the wider picture see Rochester, NY and the statewide New York profile.
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, metropolitan area Rochester, NY (SOC 41-3011, 13-1161, 15-1254, 41-4012). US Census Bureau ACS 2024 5-year estimates for Rochester city and the Rochester metro. County Business Patterns 2023. National comparisons use the same BLS and Census series. Pay terms for the YelloPost role are YelloPost's own.
Apply with a resume and a brief note about Rochester; the founders read every application.
careers@yellopost.com · (916) 260-2570