How much preceptors earn, and how pay works

What decides what you earn

A preceptor’s earnings are built from three parts, and each one is yours to choose:

• Your rate: you set it within our network’s range for your specialty. In person and virtual precepting can each have their own rate.
• Your hours: each student’s program sets how many hours their course needs, and you see that before you accept.
• Your students: some preceptors take one student a term; others take several across a year, in person, virtually or both.

How Preceptorate pays you

Pay follows the same simple pattern for every specialty:

1. 1You set your rateWithin our network’s range for your specialty.
2. 2You see the pay firstEvery student we bring you shows the hours and the pay before you say yes.
3. 3You precept and sign offYour student logs their hours; you review and sign them off.
4. 4You are paid per blockPay comes per block of precepting hours. A block’s length follows your student’s program, and it is set out before you accept.
5. 5Every payment on recordBy Zelle or direct deposit, with a receipt for each payment in your portal.

The same pay in every specialty

The pattern is the same whether you precept NP, PA, nurse-midwifery, DNP, MSN, counseling, social work or behavior analysis students: you set a rate within the range for your specialty, you see the hours and the pay first, and you are paid per block of hours.

What differs is how many hours each program asks for across a student’s training. Every NP student completes at least 750 direct patient care hours. DNP programs usually require 1,000 practice hours after the bachelor’s degree. CACREP counseling programs usually ask for a 100-hour practicum and a 600-hour internship, CSWE programs at least 400 field hours in a BSW and 900 in an MSW, and behavior analysis candidates usually complete 2,000 hours of supervised fieldwork, or 1,500 concentrated. Your share of those hours is set out with each student before you accept.

Planning your year

Most programs run their clinical courses in terms: spring, summer and fall. Preceptors who tell us the terms and days that suit them are matched for those terms, and can take a student in one term and rest the next.

If you precept both in person and virtually, the two fit together well: an in-person student on your clinic days, and a virtual student whose hours you review in a few minutes a week.

How preceptor pay is reported

Pay from a precepting network is usually independent contractor income. For payments made from 2026 onward, a payer files a Form 1099-NEC when it pays you $2,000 or more in a calendar year; for earlier years the threshold was $600. Contractor income is paid in full, and many preceptors set aside part of each payment for the tax due on it.

Our guide to preceptor income and taxes walks through self-employment tax, the 2026 Social Security wage base and the estimated tax dates.

What else precepting earns you

Precepting counts toward certification renewal. ANCC accepts 120 preceptor hours as a full professional development category. AANPCB converts up to 120 precepting hours into 25 continuing education hours. AMCB counts 90 or more precepting hours as up to 10 contact hours for certified nurse-midwives, with or without payment. Practicing PAs earn AAPA Category 1 CME through accredited PA programs.

A number of states also offer income tax credits for precepting, with rules that vary from state to state.

And there is the part that does not show on a statement: teaching keeps your own clinical reasoning sharp, and the students you precept become the colleagues your specialty needs.

In person and virtual, side by side

In-person precepting happens on the clinic days you choose: your student joins your practice and learns with your patients. Virtual precepting takes minutes a week: our team runs the mentorship sessions, and you review and sign off the hours your student logs.

Because you set a rate for each, within our network’s range, many preceptors combine the two: an in-person student on their clinic days and a virtual student alongside. Each student is shown to you with its own hours and pay before you accept.

What you see before you accept

Every student we bring you arrives with the whole picture, so each decision is easy:

• The student’s program and clinical course.
• The dates of the rotation and the hours the course asks for.
• Whether the rotation is in person or virtual.
• The pay, at the rate you set.
• Who signs the affiliation agreement for your site, which our team prepares.

Questions